A Mississippi seafood distributor and two managers pleaded responsible Tuesday to conspiring to mislabel seafood and commit wire fraud by advertising and marketing frozen imported fish as costlier native species, federal authorities mentioned.
High quality Poultry and Seafood Inc., the biggest seafood wholesaler on the Mississippi Gulf Coast, agreed to forfeit $1 million and pay a $150,000 tremendous, the Justice Division mentioned. The corporate’s gross sales supervisor Todd A. Rosetti and enterprise supervisor James W. Gunkel, each of Ocean Springs, Mississippi, additionally pleaded responsible to misbranding seafood.
The developments Tuesday are the newest in a case tied to a well-known Mississippi Gulf Coast restaurant, Mary Mahoney’s Previous French Home in Biloxi.
In Could, the restaurant pleaded responsible to conspiracy to misbrand seafood and wire fraud. A co-owner/supervisor of Mary Mahoney’s, Anthony Charles Cvitanovich, additionally pleaded responsible to misbranding seafood.
The Justice Division mentioned Tuesday that QPS admitted collaborating within the fish substitution scheme from 2002 via November 2019. An indictment alleged QPS advisable and bought foreign-sourced fish to eating places as substitutes for native fish that eating places marketed on menus. The division mentioned QPS additionally mislabeled imports that it bought to prospects at its personal retail store and café.
“QPS and firm officers went to nice lengths in conspiring with others to perpetuate fraud for greater than a decade, even after they knew they have been below federal investigation,” mentioned Todd Kim, assistant legal professional normal of the Justice Division’s Setting and Pure Assets Division.
Todd Gee, the U.S. legal professional for southern Mississippi, mentioned falsely advertising and marketing imported fish depresses the worth of the native catch on the Gulf Coast.
“This sort of mislabeling fraud hurts the general native seafood market and rips off restaurant prospects who have been paying further to eat a premium native product,” Gee mentioned.
The indictment alleged that even after FDA brokers executed a prison search warrant at QPS to analyze the sale of mislabeled fish, the wholesaler continued for greater than a 12 months to promote frozen fish imported from Africa, South America and India as substitutes for native fish.
Mary Mahoney’s admitted that between December 2013 and November 2019, it fraudulently bought, as native premium species, about 58,750 kilos (26,649 kilograms) of fish that weren’t the categories recognized on its menu. QPS equipped seafood to Mary Mahoney’s and different restaurant eating places and retailers.
Sentencing for Mary Mahoney’s and Cvitanovich is ready for Nov. 18, in keeping with courtroom data. Sentencing for QPS, Rosetti and Gunkel is ready for Dec. 11.
