April 11, 2017 — Down on the docks of the Whaling City, everyone knows him as “Carlos.”
“I’ve been working for Carlos for 12 years now,” says Richard Mauzerolle of Weston. “Sometimes he should watch out who he’s talking to,” he adds with a laugh, referencing the IRS sting that landed Carlos Rafael guilty on 28 counts in late March. “But he’s a good guy.”
The fall of New Bedford fishing boss Carlos Rafael could be a big blow for the city’s port. And if his fishing permits are forfeited and end up in another state, it could hurt Massachusetts as a whole.
What happens to Rafael’s boats — and the permits attached to them — will be decided by a federal judge. And people in New Bedford want them to stay in the city.
‘He’s One Of My Main Livelihoods’
Mauzerolle is in the spray foam business — he insulates holds on fishing boats owned by Rafael. He’s one of hundreds of people who work with the man known as “the Codfather,” who gives Mauzerolle about a third of his business.
“He’s one of my main livelihoods right down in the area, so it’d be a shame to have him lose anything,” says Mauzerolle, standing in front of his box truck with a massive Donald Trump sign stuck to the side. Rafael, he says, has “brought this fishing industry back to where it’s supposed to be down here.”
In 2004, Rafael spoke to an archivist at the Working Waterfront Festival in New Bedford about how he amassed so many boats, highlighting the importance of diversifying between scallops and groundfish.