April 21, 2025

This Week in Amateur Radio

North America's Premiere Amateur Radio News Magazine

FCC

FCC Plans to Fine Five Radio Pirates in Florida

The Federal Communications Commission is ramping up its pressure on a person it describes as “one of the longest-operating [radio] pirates in the Miami area.”

It has proposed the maximum allowable penalty, about $2.4 million, against Fabrice Polynice for allegedly operating a pirate station known as “Touché Douce” over 22 days in 2023. In a notice of apparent liability, it said Polynice had also been issued forfeiture orders in 2013 and 2018.

This is the fifth multimillion-dollar penalty proposed by the FCC since the PIRATE Act significantly raised maximum fines in 2020. Only one to date has progressed to a final forfeiture order, involving Radio Impacto 2 in New York; there has been no further word about that one being paid or collected.

The FCC also has proposed four smaller fines in the Miami area.

Penalties of about $358,000 each are proposed against Brindley Marshall, Wilfrid Salomon and Cameron Brown. “All three individuals have been operating pirate radio stations for years and have received multiple warnings to cease their unauthorized broadcasting,” the commission wrote. The dollar figure is the maximum penalty for three days of alleged violations in 2023.

The FCC also proposed a forfeiture of $120,000 against Abdias Datis.

Read more – RadioWorld: