Judge orders fishing influencer to erase social media pics after he illegally nets great white

He bit off more than he could chew.A fishing influencer who calls himself the “LI Sharkman” who illegally caught a tracked great white nicknamed “Aaron” was ordered to take down social media picks of his Cape Cod romp.Massapequa resident Christopher Stefanou, 30, spent days on the cape’s eastern shore with his crew and a European business partner in October 2025 hunting for a great white shark, according to Massachusetts prosecutors. Stefanou used illegal fishing equipment, including a drone, to capture and drag the shark onto the beach.Aaron the Shark was a protected great white that was already tagged and being closely monitored by the Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries and the Atlantic White Shark Conservancy.Authorities were only alerted to the illegal catch after Stefanou posted a video online showing him and his crew celebrating and photographing themselves with the shark before ultimately releasing it, police said. Most of the waters around the cape are off-limits to gear built to haul in large fish like great whites, authorities detailed. But the illegal catch came back to bite him Wednesday when he was hit with a boatload of charges, including cruelty to animals, fishing for shark, mechanical deployment of bait, attempting to capture a shark and possession of a protected species.

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He was also ordered to remove all videos of him with the shark from social media, authorities said. At his arraignment Wednesday, Stefanou was ordered to hand over his fishing license, and was barred from setting foot in Massachusetts.His bail was set at $10,000. Stefanou is due back in court Dec.

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