Saving Seafood

JOHN PAPPALARDO: What justice looks like for our fisheries

May 20, 2017 — The high-profile arrest of Carlos Rafael followed by his guilty plea to lying about the fish he caught and sold is final proof of the existence of a devastating rogue wave that has battered the historic New England fishery.

Rafael tainted an entire industry, making fools of hardworking, honest fishermen who have been playing by the rules under increasingly difficult circumstances.

It’s entirely possible that his illegal reporting distorted the scientific analysis that powered our fish population assessments. By mislabeling depleted species and selling them as abundant species, Rafael kept scientists from making honest estimates of how much fish actually was in the water. Public policy was built on bad assumptions, which in turn created double damage — lowering limits on the amount of fish honest fishermen were allowed to bring to shore while at the same time stealing the resource we are all committed to rebuilding.

Now comes the crucial question: What does justice look like in the aftermath of an admitted economic and environmental crime of this magnitude?

First, Carlos Rafael should be banned from commercial fishing, forever.

Second, the fishing quota he owns (pounds of fish allowed to be landed each year) should be redistributed to all of the fishermen in our region, because they are the ones most damaged by his criminal enterprise.

Third, additional revenue on his assets, whether from outright confiscation and sale, or fines and penalties, should be used to fund major improvements in how our fisheries are monitored and studied. This is the only way to assure that the same thing won’t keep happening over and over again, to protect honest fishermen and to revive fish populations.

While most fishermen are hardworking and law-abiding, making a living in a dangerous but gratifying way, we need to acknowledge that Rafael is not the only person to game the system (though he’s likely the worst). This is the moment to learn from what he was able to pull off and shut the door on anyone who aims to steal public resources from the ocean, other fishermen and the American public.

By Rafael’s own estimation, his fleet is worth between $75 million and $100 million. In the plea bargain proposed in return for his guilty plea, only 20 percent of his holdings (13 vessels and permits worth about $15 million) would be confiscated. This would leave him with $60 million or more of assets.

Read the full opinion piece at the Cape Cod Times

PORTLAND PRESS HERALD: Catching ‘The Codfather’ should just be first step

May 15, 2017 — Two years ago, Carlos Rafael let it be known that he was ready to sell his New Bedford, Massachusetts-based fishing fleet and wholesale seafood dealership, a business that had combined assets of about $20 million.

But in a meeting with a couple of potential buyers from Russia, Rafael said the real asking price was $175 million and he assured them it would be well worth it. Pulling a ledger labeled “cash” from his desk drawer, the fishing mogul showed how he was able to falsify records to get around both tax law and fishing regulations, netting him millions of dollars in unreported income derived from systematically violating conservation limits.

But the buyers turned out to be undercover agents. And that’s how the feds finally caught up with “The Codfather.”

On March 30, Rafael pleaded guilty in federal court to a 28-count indictment that included charges of tax evasion, falsifying fishing quotas and conspiracy. He is facing up to six years in prison at his sentencing next month, but how much time he will spend behind bars is only one of the many questions that need to be resolved.

What will happen to his fishing fleet and its associated permits? Thirteen boats were connected with the indictment, and they are subject to seizure. But what about the rest of his 40-vessel fleet and wholesale business, which is still operating?

Read the full opinion piece at the Portland Press Herald

JOHN PAPPALARDO: Rafael Should be Permanently Banned from Fishing, Redistribution of Quota

May 15, 2017 — SEAFOOD NEWS — Carlos Rafael pled guilty to running a massive criminal enterprise that stole from honest fishermen and undermined the fisheries as a whole.  One of his quotes offers a revealing insight into his perspective:

“This is America; anything can happen, with money behind it.”

Let’s put his money to work fixing the fishery he badly damaged.

Carlos Rafael should be banned from commercial fishing forever. The fish quota he owns should be redistributed to all the fishermen he harmed. That’s what existing regulations mandate, that’s what many in the industry believe, and we agree.

But we can demand and expect more. Honest fishermen have not been playing on a level field with the likes of Carlos. We need to make sure they aren’t put in that position again.

To do that, we must invest some of his illegal gains in fishing’s future by improving dockside monitoring, expanding electronic monitoring and increasing fishermen-scientist collaborations to get better fish counts.

We can transform this moment into an opportunity to create the oversight and infrastructure necessary to make honest, long-term success possible for our iconic fishery.

This can happen, and Carlos Rafael’s money should be behind it.

This letter originally appeared on SeafoodNews.com, a subscription site. It is reprinted with permission. 

Prices diving for largest US scallops

May 12, 2017 — US fishing vessels have been landing lots of larger scallops since fishing started in March, bringing prices down rapidly.

So far, landings have been largely U10s and 20/30s, a source with a large New Bedford, Massachusetts-based buyer told Undercurrent News.

“At today’s auction we saw a lot of U10s. Daily catch rates have started high and with plenty of large scallops,” the source said.

Prices at the New Bedford auction illustrate this.

Early in April (April 10), prices were as follows, according to information seen by Undercurrent:

U10s caught in the Nantucket Lightship scallop access area went for an average $16.96 per pound; U12s from the same grounds for $16.66/lb; 10/20s from the Elephant Trunk flex access area sold at $9.63/lb; and 20/30s from the Mid-Atlantic access area went for $9.38/lb.

By April 26 these were down across the board: U10s down 4% at $16.31; U12s down 8% at $15.38/lb; 10/20s down 6% at $9.07/lb; and 20/30s down 6% at $8.80/lb.

However the real drop has come in May. On May 11 these corresponding prices were down, compared to April 10:

U10s by 19%, to $13.70/lb; U12s by 25% to $12.50/lb; 10/20s by 22%, at $7.51/lb; and 20/30s by 20%, at $7.47/lb.

“The catch rates have been outstanding,” a second source, who works at a fishing company, told Undercurrent. “So, people are trying to figure out if we are going to have 50-55 million pounds, which is a lot more than we have been getting.”

Read the full story at Undercurrent News

MASSACHUSETTS: New Bedford Fishing Heritage Center program teaches students sea safety

May 10, 2017 — New Bedford Fishing Heritage Center will present programs for more than 1,000 fourth-graders from New Bedford Public Schools in May as part of the national park’s Every Kid in a Park program. These programs will provide students with an introduction to the Center with a focus on Safety at Sea.

Commercial fishing is one of the most dangerous occupations in the nation. During their visit to the center, students will learn how fishermen train to keep themselves safe while at sea. A few students will get to try on survival suits. Center staff and volunteers from the fishing industry will present the program, sharing their knowledge with students.

BankFive provided a grant to support the center’s educational programs.

Educators interested in learning about program options are encouraged to contact the center. Programs can be tailored to the particular interests and grade levels of students.

The center is open free of charge, Thursday through Sunday, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m,. and is located at 38 Bethel St., in the heart of the park. The center is wheelchair-accessible and has free off-street parking.

Read the full story at the New Bedford Standard-Times

HANK SOULE: Rafael: Punishment should fit the crimes

May 9, 2017 — New Bedford fishing mogul Carlos Rafael has now pleaded guilty to a suite of felonies including tax evasion, smuggling fish to shore and cash offshore, false federal reporting, and evading quotas. The Justice Department has worked up a plea deal including four years in prison and seizure of some boats and permits. That suffices for the cash-related crimes, and thanks goes to law enforcement for their long, hard work and the penalties imposed. But it’s not enough.

Rafael has a multi-decadal history of lawbreaking. In 2016 the Boston Globe reported, “Rafael has a history of crime related to his business. He served a six-month prison term for tax evasion in the 1980s and was charged with price-fixing in 1994, though he was acquitted in that case, according to court records. He was also convicted of making false statements on landing slips for commercial fishing vessels in 2000 and was sentenced to probation, according to court records.”

That’s not the half of it. The National Maine Fisheries Service has record of 20 separate admitted violations over the last two decades involving Rafael’s vessels and corporations. They include sub-legal net mesh sizes, missing fishing day declarations and under-counting, quota violations, false reporting, and concealing illicit catch. The boats and scams varied but they all have one common thread: The name “Rafael” stamped on the corporate documentation.

It is no stretch to stipulate that this record, along with the recent case at hand, constitutes prima-facie evidence of repeated, willful, and egregious criminal activity on the part of Rafael. These violations caused unknown harm to fishery resources — by statute, property of the people of the United States — and to all the law-abiding fishermen who have suffered under increasingly stringent regulations (or been forced out of the business entirely). The question at hand is: How to protect the victims and environment alike from this serial offender?

Here’s the rest of the story: In addition to the 13 vessels and permits to be seized, Rafael has another eight vessels and 25 permits still enrolled in the groundfishery. The government has not proposed to restrict those vessels in any way. There are no known sanctions on the offending captains. No additional monitoring of those vessels is planned. In other words: It’s pretty much business as usual, and for Rafael while the loss of those 13 vessels is unfortunate, it’s just one of the costs of engaging in smuggling.

Read the full opinion piece at National Fisherman

MASSACHUSETTS: Labor Council latest to make plea for Carlos Rafael permits to remain in New Bedford

May 8, 2017 — The line of organizations with their eyes focused on the future of Carlos Rafael’s fishing permits continued to grow Friday.

The Greater Southeastern Massachusetts Labor Council addressed a letter to John K. Bullard, NOAA’s regional director from Maine to Cape Hatteras, North Carolina, as well as U.S. Attorney William Weinreb that urged the two men “to allocate the fishing permits now controlled by Carlos Rafael to the New Bedford area.”

“We sent a letter basically because of the fishing industry in New Bedford,” Cynthia Rodrigues, president of the council said. “(The permits landing elsewhere) will hurt the fishing in New Bedford.”

Bullard said he couldn’t comment on matters under litigation but saw no issues with parties announcing their opinions on the matter.

“I think it is perfectly fine for people to weigh in on what they think should happen in this case. It is a significant case and many people have been impacted,” he said. “There is nothing wrong with people letting us know how they feel about this case or what they think the government should do. That is perfectly appropriate at any time. But the case is under litigation.”

Read the full story at the New Bedford Standard-Times

Other New England Groundfish Sectors Demand Equitable Distribution of Rafael Permits

May 8, 2017 — SEAFOOD NEWS — The Sustainable Harvest Sector, one of the fishery cooperatives authorized by the New England Fishery Management Council, has called again for NMFS to redistribute Carlos Rafael’s fishing permits to the entire industry, by returning the catch history to the entire region.  Below is a statement from the Board of this Sector, making the case as to why NMFS should act in this manner. [Saving Seafood Editor’s Note: The Board of this Sector consists of Frank Patania, Anthony Fernandes, Phil Ruhle, Jr., Maggie Raymond, James Odlin, Marshall Alexander]

They also rightly state that any geographic preference, such as permanently awarding a portion of quota to New Bedford, requires an extensive public consultation and rulemaking, as such geographic allocations are outlawed under Magnuson except in very special and specific cases.

Fair and Just Compensation in the Case of Carlos Rafael

As Carlos Rafael’s criminal case of money laundering and fishery fraud winds toward closure, the National Marine Fisheries Service must confirm how to re-allocate Rafael’s fish harvesting privileges.  The government plans to seize thirteen vessels and fishing permits. That still leaves Rafael with dozens more boats and permits to continue operating, and many fishermen believe he should be expelled from the fishery entirely.  But whether it’s thirteen permits seized or the three dozen he owns, each one has some amount of fishing rights ‘attached’ to it which must be re-allocated.

The New England Fishery Management Council is the primary federal body which controls quota allocation, and it already has a re-allocation mechanism in place.  Several years ago, the Council voted that the harvesting rights attached to any permit surrendered to the government would be proportionally redistributed to all remaining permits in the fishery.

Though the Council perhaps did not envision a seizure of this magnitude, the mechanism actually works quite well here.  Carlos Rafael has a long history of breaking a myriad of fishing rules, including quota-busting, violations of fishing time limits, closed area incursions, and false catch reporting to the government.  The nearly twenty publicly available settlement agreements with the government follow a timeworn, repeat pattern: A violation, followed by a negotiated fine which is just the cost of doing business in a criminal enterprise.

Rafael stole from every other fisherman in New England.   Over the last five years, his boats poached fish from waters off Downeast Maine to the Rhode Island coast.  While everyone else was suffering under severe cuts to their allowable catch of cod and flounder, Rafael simply decided those cuts didn’t apply to him, and smuggled the fish ashore anyway.

So the Council’s re-allocation mechanism rewards those who play by the rules.  If offers some relief to fishermen working under stringent catch limits which might be a bit higher if not for Rafael and his complicit captains.   It buttresses the logic that as the crimes were committed throughout the region, relief should be distributed throughout the region as well.

The City of New Bedford believes Rafael’s thirteen permits should be confiscated, then locked to that port in perpetuity.  This is an understandable position but is morally bereft.   Locking the quota to that port denies redress to the vast majority of Rafael’s victims.  The City of New Bedford has only benefitted from Rafael’s continuous criminal acts.  It is unseemly to enjoy those benefits for twenty years then, once the scam is exposed, seize them for all time.

New Bedford is by far the nation’s richest fishing port and has been for at least a decade, landing $300-$400 million of seafood annually. In contrast, the entire New England groundfishery is presently worth $60 million.  It is a vibrant and diverse waterfront which will not, by the Mayor’s own admission, succumb to Rafael’s misdeeds.  And New Bedford will benefit from the Council’s mechanism, via quota re-allocation to other boats already based in that port.  Everybody gains.

Neither the governing Council, nor the National Marine Fisheries Service which implements the Council’s policy directives, has ever contemplated restricting quota even to the New England states, never mind individual cities.  Changes of that magnitude take years to develop and mountains of public input – which the Council already conducted, as part of its fishery management plan.  The redistribution mechanism is already in place, it has passed legal muster, and – particularly in this case – it is just.

Board of Directors

The Sustainable Harvest Sector

This story originally appeared on Seafoodnews.com, a subscription site. It is reprinted with permission.

SEAN HORGAN: Fate of Raphael’s permits being debated

May 8, 2017 — As we have mentioned several times in the past, they don’t seem to brook a whole lot of foolishness up in Maine, particularly when it comes to cheating in the commercial fishing business.

So, it wasn’t really surprising when the Gloucester Daily Times received —  ran — a letter last week from Maggie Raymond, the highly respected executive director of the Associated Fisheries of Maine, with her take on what should happen to convicted scammer Carlos Rafael’s surrendered groundfishing permits.

“For law-abiding fishermen, this day is long overdue,” Raymond wrote. “While other fishermen were complying with steep reductions in fishing quotas, Rafael decided those rules didn’t apply to him. Rafael’s violations set back groundfish rebuilding requirements, and forced others to compete with his illegal activity on the fishing grounds and in the market.”

But Raymond wasn’t done there. She followed by offering a solution for the distribution of Rafael’s still-to-be-decided permit forfeitures. It’s one sure to make New Bedford Mayor Jon F. Mitchell choke on his Wheaties.

“Rafael’s history is so egregious that the National Marine Fisheries Service is obliged to cancel all his groundfish permits and fishing privileges,” she wrote. “Existing regulations describe a process for redistributing the fishing privileges from cancelled permits to all other permit holders in the fishery — and this is precisely the process that should be followed in this case.”

Read the full opinion piece at the Gloucester Times

Albertsons Companies Becomes First Major Grocer to Sell Fair Trade Certified™ Scallops

May 5, 2017 — Albertsons Companies today announced that it has expanded its Fair Trade Certified™ seafood program and its commitment to responsible sourcing by becoming the first major grocer to carry Fair Trade Certified™ scallops.

The Fair Trade Certified™ program addresses the social and environmental needs of fishing communities across the globe by protecting fundamental human rights of workers, preventing forced and child labor, establishing safe working conditions, regulating work hours and benefits, and enabling responsible, sustainable resource management.

“Albertsons Companies takes our commitment to socially and environmentally responsible seafood seriously,” said Buster Houston, Group Director of Seafood at Albertsons Companies. “By providing Fair Trade Certified™ seafood, we are able to support the domestic industry, provide our customers with the highest quality product, and support the health of ocean ecosystems and communities that depend upon them.”

The new product, Santa Monica Seafood® Signature Sea Scallops, is sourced from the Port of New Bedford, Massachusetts, an iconic fishing village with a rich history of American seafood production. These large scallops are not only responsibly sourced, but are also recognized worldwide as having unparalleled texture and flavor. Santa Monica Seafood® Signature Sea Scallops are available at Albertsons, Vons and Pavilions stores in Southern California and will be available at Safeway stores in Northern California this summer.

Read the full story at PR Newswire