Richmond seafood wholesaler fined US$150,000, placed on probation for illegal import of fish
Credit to Author: Harrison Mooney| Date: Sat, 07 Dec 2019 02:16:45 +0000
The owner of a Richmond-based seafood has been sentenced to probation and fined US$2,000 after pleading guilty to importing previously refused food to the U.S.
The company agreed to pay a fine of $150,000 and was ordered Friday to do so within six months. Seven Seas will also be on probation for the next three years, with increased scrutiny and surveillance of its imports into the U.S.
The Seven Seas Fish Company and owner John Heras, 78, admitted in October in U.S. District Court in Seattle that between October 2014 and August 2015 they imported more than four tons of potentially adulterated fish into the country.
“This activity leads consumers to be concerned about food safety,” said Magistrate Judge Mary Alice Theiler at a sentencing hearing on Friday.
The fish had previously been refused entry after the U.S. Food and Drug Administration found that samples of frozen corvina, purchased from a seafood company in Mexico, were “too decomposed and putrid” to sell to consumers, according to a U.S. Department of Justice news release.
Corvina is a white fish similar to sea bass, often served in ceviche.
Prosecutors say Seven Seas arranged for the fish to enter the country anyhow, claiming it would not be sold there, but rather continue on to the company’s plant in Richmond for distribution in Canada.
According to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Western District of Washington, Seven Seas then broke this arrangement. Once the fish arrived in B.C., prosecutors said, “Heras cooked and ate some of the fish and claimed he found nothing wrong with it.”
He then encouraged others within his company to sell the fish in Washington state after all.
Approximately 9,020 pounds of the fish was imported into the U.S.
The FDA has not found any illness linked to those who consumed the fish.
The company claims he no longer has a leadership role at Seven Seas.
Seven Seas, which also goes by 7 Seas, was founded in 1967 by Heras, and is described on the company’s website as a “family owned and operated Canadian business committed to providing high quality, sustainable seafood.”
In 2008, nearly Cdn$100,000 worth of Seven Seas’ Canadian salmon was seized after it was determined that the fish had been caught by illegal gill netting. In 2009, Seven Seas was fined $50,000 for selling salmon without notifying regulators after the fish had been detained because it was found unfit for human consumption. The fish was sold for mink feed.
“On two prior occasions, this company put its financial success over the food import regulations and the safety of consumers,” said U.S. Attorney Brian T. Moran. “Now, with a third strike, it is appropriate that the company and its part-owner face a federal criminal conviction and its consequences.”
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