NOAA Agents Investigate Illegal Seafood Tradeff

The armed agents stroll into the frigid market, where the pungent stink of seafood assaults them. The smell pervades their clothes and the scaly, gooey water clings to their boots.

They pass burly men slinging slabs of fish with gleaming hooks and table saws ripping through frozen chunks of swordfish and tuna. Tempers flare as forklifts dart around the cavernous building known as the Fulton Fish Market.

Agents Chris Schoppmeyer and Scott Doyle barely notice any of this. They’re only interested in clams today. They want to know which of the wholesalers have unknowingly bought the shellfish from a company involved in a smuggling operation.

They stop at a fish stand. Schoppmeyer recognizes the name. He’s got a bite. “They were definitely sold here,” Schoppmeyer says.

Such fishing expeditions play out on a regular basis for agents at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s little-known law enforcement office.

The agents’ mission has taken on greater urgency in recent years as more and more illegally harvested seafood gets pulled from the water and makes it way onto people's dinner plates.

Agency data shows that in the 2006 budget year, about 750 investigations were opened up in the Northeast region, which includes many of the nation’s biggest commercial ports like Cape May, N.J., and Gloucester and New Bedford, Mass. That represents a nearly 108 percent increase from five years earlier.

Many of these busts have focused on a black market for seafood that stretches across the world.

Last year, a corporation from Uruguay and one of its executives pleaded guilty to trying to import and sell $3.5 million worth of Chilean sea bass, also known as “white gold” because it is so expensive. Chilean sea bass is a main target of illegal operations because of the huge market for the rare fish, resulting in tight fishing restrictions.

NOAA agents also helped uncover a South African corporation that was illegally harvesting massive quantities of rock lobster, devastating the species.

”That was the worse case I’ve seen and greed was the major catalyst for the over harvesting,” NOAA agent Jeffrey Ray said of the lobster case.

NOAA’s primary mission is to predict environmental changes, and provide industry and government decision-makers with a reliable base of scientific information, according to the agency.

Within NOAA is the National Marine Fisheries Service, providing the checks and balances that govern fragile, watery ecosystems that are imperiled.

Studies warn of dire consequences to the global ecosystem because of illegal harvests, including one that suggests the world's oceans will run out of fish by 2048.

”There is a looming threat to the world’s fish stocks,” said Robert S. Steneck, a professor of oceanography, marine biology and marine policy at the University of Maine. “The global consumption of fish has increased over the past several decades. To keep bringing fish to the table, ships and fishing gear keeps improving.”

Officials say the United States provides ample opportunity for overfishing; more than one-fifth of the world's most productive marine areas lie within the nation's territorial waters.

Authorities say plenty of illegal fish is destined for restaurants and retail outlets in places like New York City, with its 8.2 million residents, who eat on average of about 17 pounds of seafood a year. The city is considered the restaurant capital of the world with 26,000 eating establishments.

Every year, commercial fishermen in the U.S. land nearly 10 billion pounds of fish and shellfish valued at about $3.5 billion. The fishing industry employs 28 million people, and NOAA says the value of the ocean economy to the U.S. is more than $115 billion.

But the agency, a part of the U.S. Department of Commerce, does this crucial enforcement task on a shoestring budget with only about 225 employees.

Recognition is scant.

”Yeah, sure it’s daunting,” says Doyle, a former high school science teacher and New Jersey game warden who joined the agency nearly 20 years ago. “But our little victories become big victories. When we catch a guy it reverberates throughout the industry.”

The agents use a bag of traditional law enforcement tricks such as informants, tips and accounting. Fishermen and wholesale dealers keep meticulous records, and evidence of crimes often turns up in the bills of sale. They can also track fishing boats using global-positioning systems.

The agents often end up in New York City, whose Fulton Fish Market is one of the biggest seafood markets in the world. Because the market is so sprawling, it provides an enticing way for companies to launder illegal seafood. Years ago, the mob controlled the market but have since been pushed out.

The facility houses 37 fish wholesalers, and it processed a staggering 248.7 million pounds of seafood last year, according to the city. The historic market was located in lower Manhattan for more than a century before moving to a new facility in the Bronx in 2005.

Walking through Fulton with Doyle is like peering into his case files. Many people know him, respect him and probably fear him. Some say hello, some avoid him.

Michael Perretti, who works for his father’s company at Fulton, is one of the latter. Perretti and Doyle are not buddies.

Perretti was one of several people and companies who pleaded guilty in a 1999 case involving the sale of untagged wild striped bass that was fished out of the lower Hudson River, which is polluted with dangerous PCBs. It’s illegal to harvest and commercially sell striped bass from the river because of the contamination. Doyle conducted the investigation that made headlines across New York papers.

In the late 1990s, a New Jersey fisherman sold thousands of pounds of wild striped bass to Perretti’s company, M.V. Perretti Corp. The corporation turned around and peddled the fish to other wholesalers. Some of the city's finest restaurants ended up buying the tainted fish.

Also implicated in that case was M. Slavin & Sons, a huge seafood distributor at Fulton, and one of the biggest in the New York metro area.

Herbert Slavin owns the company and is a legend in the fish business. Slavin is a millionaire many times over. At 76, he can still sling fish with ease - something he’s done for decades.

Doyle and Slavin have a long history. When Doyle arrested Perretti, he also tried to make the case against Slavin. In the criminal complaint, M. Slavin & Sons Inc. was accused of buying striped bass from Perretti.

But investigators didn’t have enough evidence to prove Slavin or his company knew the fish was illegal. Slavin walked.

Slavin, the big one that got away.

Several months ago, as Doyle was snooping around Fulton in connection with the illegal clams investigation, he ran into the feisty Slavin.

The two exchanged words.

The 6-foot-3-inch Doyle reminded the stocky Slavin who was boss.

”I almost got you,” Doyle says.

”Almost”, a smiling Slavin shot back.