FDA Uncovers Fishy Scheme in Mississippi, DOJ Secures Guilty Pleas

After deceiving diners for years, a scheme to mislabel seafood finally caught up with the largest seafood distributor on the U.S. Gulf Coast.

According to prosecutors. Quality Poultry and Seafood Inc. (QPS), tricked customers by mislabeling imported frozen fish as more expensive fish caught in local waters.

The scheme ran from 2002 to 2019.

Under a plea deal, QPS pleaded guilty and agreed to forfeit $1 million and a pay a $150,000 fine. QPS sales manager Todd Rosetti and QPS business manager James Gunkel also pleaded guilty to misbranding seafood.

According to the indictment, QPS recommended and sold to restaurants foreign-sourced fish that was a convincing substitute for local species restaurants advertised on their menus. QPS also labeled the cheap imports as premium local fish at its own flagship retail shop.

This continued for a year after the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) executed a search warrant at QPS.

“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.”

The case comes after Mary Mahoney’s Old French House, a well-known restaurant in Biloxi, Mississippi, also pleaded guilty to misbranding seafood and wire fraud. QPS supplied seafood to Mary Mahoney’s and other local restaurants.  

FDA’s Office of Criminal Investigations is continuing its investigation.

“U.S. consumers expect their seafood to be correctly identified. When sellers purposefully substitute one fish species for another, they deceive consumers and cause potential food safety hazards to be overlooked or misidentified by processors or end users,” said Special Agent in Charge Justin Fielder of the FDA Office of Criminal Investigations, Miami Field Office.

QPS and the two executives will be sentenced December 11.