QPS acknowledged its involvement in this fish substitution scheme dating back to 2002 and persisting until November 2019. The indictment claims that QPS advised and sold foreign-sourced fish to its restaurant clients, which could easily pass for the local species featured on their menus.
A seafood distributor based in Mississippi, along with two of its managers, has admitted guilt today for their role in a conspiracy to mislabel seafood and engage in wire fraud. They marketed cheaper, frozen imported fish as more expensive, premium local varieties.
Quality Poultry and Seafood Inc. (QPS), recognized as the largest seafood wholesaler along the Mississippi Gulf Coast, has consented to pay $1 million in forfeitures and a criminal fine of $150,000 to the United States. Todd A. Rosetti, the sales manager, and James W. Gunkel, the business manager, both hailing from Ocean Springs, Mississippi, also confessed to misbranding seafood to support QPS's fraudulent activities.
“QPS and company officials went to great lengths in conspiring with others to perpetuate fraud for more than a decade, even after they knew they were under federal investigation,” said Assistant Attorney General Todd Kim of the Justice Department’s Environment and Natural Resources Division. “Mislabeling seafood harms local wholesalers and fishermen who compete to sell locally sourced, premium fish in a market unfairly flooded with less expensive fish, frozen and imported from overseas.”
QPS acknowledged its involvement in this fish substitution scheme dating back to 2002 and persisting until November 2019. The indictment claims that QPS advised and sold foreign-sourced fish to its restaurant clients, which could easily pass for the local species featured on their menus. Additionally, QPS misrepresented the inexpensive imports sold at its retail shop and café as premium local fish.
“When imported substitutes are marketed as local domestic seafood, it depresses the value of authentic Gulf Coast seafood, which means that honest local fishermen and wholesalers have a harder time making a profit,” said U.S. Attorney Todd W. Gee for the Southern District of Mississippi. “This kind of mislabeling fraud hurts the overall local seafood market and rips off restaurant customers who were paying extra to eat a premium local product. These convictions should serve as a warning: restaurants and wholesalers will face criminal prosecution if they are not honest with customers about what they are actually buying.”
The indictment claims that despite the FDA agents executing a criminal search warrant at QPS to probe its sale of mislabeled fish, QPS persisted in selling frozen fish imported from Africa, South America, and India for over a year as substitutes for local premium species.
Mary Mahoney’s, which entered a guilty plea in May, acknowledged that from December 2013 to November 2019, it deceitfully marketed around 58,750 pounds (over 29 tons) of fish as local premium species, which did not match the species listed on its menu. QPS was a supplier of seafood to Mary Mahoney’s and numerous other restaurants and retailers.
Sentencing for QPS, Rosetti, and Gunkel is scheduled for December 11. A federal district court judge will decide on the sentences after reviewing the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines and other relevant statutory factors.
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