ANACORTES — Two smart crab wholesalers and a fishy story helped police and state wildlife officers recover 200 pounds of crab and arrest an Anacortes man Sunday for theft.

On Thanksgiving Day, the owner of M&M Fish noticed about 380 pounds of Dungeness crab missing from his business at the Port of Anacortes, said Officer Severin Erickson of the state Fish and Wildlife Department. At approximately $3.75 per pound wholesale, the missing crab was valued at $1,425, he said.

Officers recovered 200 pounds, but 180 is still missing.

“There’s potentially $700-worth of crab out there somewhere,” Erickson said.

M&M’s owner called other Anacortes wholesalers and asked them to be on the lookout for someone selling crab under suspicious circumstances, said Sgt. Russ Mullins, also of the state wildlife department. The price of crab has gone up in recent months and area fishermen have reported thefts from their docks and their boats, he said.

When a 30-year-old Anacortes man approached another wholesaler, Black Rock Seafoods, seeking to sell the 200 pounds of crab, the business owner grew suspicious, Erickson said.

Black Rock’s owner told investigators that the seller brought a crab container bearing the name of a fisherman who sold to M&M, Mullins said. So Black Rock’s owner called both M&M and the Anacortes police.

Police Officer E.F. Nordmark investigated, finding that the containers that held the crab matched the description of containers missing from M&M.

Nordmark and Erickson learned through interviews that a 21-year-old Anacortes man offered the 30-year-old money to sell the crab. The younger man told the 30-year-old that he didn’t want to sell the crab himself because he had taken his father’s boat out without permission and didn’t want to split the money with his father, Erickson said. The 30-year-old told investigators that he agreed to help without knowing the crab was stolen from a wholesaler.

After interviews with police Saturday and Sunday, the younger man admitted to taking the crab, Erickson said. He was booked into jail on investigation of second-degree theft and unlawful trafficking in fish and wildlife.

“We got a lot of support from local people who were fed up with the thefts,” Mullins said.

Marta Murvosh can be reached at 360-416-2149 or .