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Friday, September 03, 2010
Friday, September 03, 2010
Corporate Social Responsibility News
Posted: Wednesday, February 03, 2010, 9:08AM
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"Corporate Social Responsibility"
US court indicts three for false labelling and smuggling of seafood
Three US individuals have been found guilty of conspiring to falsely label, smuggle and misbrand more than 325,000 pounds of seafood in order to avoid paying tariffs and defraud customers.The Justice Department announced that Karen L. Blyth, was the co-owner and president of two companies, CSE Inc and RF Inc, that traded in a variety of seafood products. David H. M. Phelps co-owned CSE and RF and served as a vice president. John J. Popa, co-owned RF with Blyth and Phelps and served as the company's vice president.
The indictment alleges that the three used CSE to supply RF, among others, with falsely labelled fish that were in turn sold to RF's customers in Alabama and the Florida panhandle. RF sold the mislabelled seafood and substituted cheaper product for more expensive seafood. As part of the conspiracy, the three caused the fish from the boxes that were correctly labelled to be removed and placed into boxes that bore no description or falsely labelled the fish.
Blyth and Phelps also arranged for CSE to purchase hundreds of thousands of pounds of frozen fillets of catfish through a company in Vietnam knowing that the catfish would be mislabelled to avoid import tariffs. A January 2003 anti-dumping tariff was placed on all imports of Vietnamese catfish into the United States because the Vietnamese catfish was being marketed at a significantly lower price than was market rate at the time. That initial anti-dumping order imposed a duty of up to 63.88 percent on fish subject to the order.
In order to do this, the two provided the Vietnamese company false shipping labels and generated purchase orders and other false documentation to conceal the product.
Blyth, Phelps and Popa then had RF purchase the falsely labelled fish in small increments from CSE to sell to its Alabama and Florida customers.
Blyth and Phelps were also charged with six felony counts of false labelling of approximately 283,500 pounds of imported Pangasius fillet, a type of catfish, as sole, in violation of the Lacey Act; two felony counts of the receipt, sale, and transportation of this falsely labelled fish, which was imported falsely labelleld and without applicable tariffs having been paid; and one felony count of misbranding of this catfish as sole.
The maximum penalty for each smuggling count is up to 20 years in prison and a $250,000 fine. The maximum penalty for each violation of the Lacey Act includes up to five years in prison and a $250,000 fine. The maximum penalty for each misbranding count includes up to three years in prison and a $250,000 fine.
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