Saving Seafood

US fishing magnate dubbed ‘The Codfather’ set to change plea

March 30, 2017 — A leading U.S. fishing magnate known as “The Codfather” is scheduled to plead guilty to federal charges of evading fishing quotas and smuggling money to Portugal.

The U.S. attorney’s office says Carlos Rafael has a change of plea hearing scheduled for Thursday.

Rafael is the owner of one of the nation’s largest commercial fishing operations. It includes a fleet of more than 30 vessels, 44 commercial fishing permits and the Carlos Seafood business in New Bedford.

Federal authorities say Rafael falsely claimed his vessels caught haddock or pollock, when they had actually caught other species subject to stricter quotas. He then sold the fish for cash, some of which was smuggled overseas.

He was indicted on 27 counts last May and is free on $2 million bond.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at Boston.com

New indictment adds tax evasion to charges against Carlos Rafael

March 24, 2017 — The U.S. attorney included a new charge of tax evasion against Carlos Rafael as part of a “superseding” indictment released by its office last week.

The charge of tax evasion brought the total number of counts against the New Bedford fishing tycoon to 28. The others also include one count of conspiracy, 25 counts of lying to federal fishing regulators and one count of bulk cash smuggling.

According to the U.S. attorney, Rafael is expected to plead guilty to tax evasion as part of his plea agreement, which was announced earlier this month. The U.S. attorney Massachusetts provided no other information regarding the deal except that Rafael would plead guilty to evading fishing quotas and smuggling profits to Portugal in addition to tax evasion.

Rafael is scheduled in U.S. District Court in Boston on March 30 at 2:30 p.m.

The updated indictment states that from November 2014 to about October of 2015 Rafael failed to pay taxes in the sum of $108,929. It also included two new paragraphs regarding the general allegations toward Rafael.

The U.S. attorney alleges that Rafael deposited cash into accounts in Portugal to avoid paying taxes on the money. According to the indictment, Rafael told a bookkeeper for Carlos Seafood Inc. not to enter the cash payments into the company’s record-keeping system.

The U.S. attorney also alleges Rafael omitted $267,061 in reportable cash income in 2014.

Rafael spent six months in federal prison after being convicted of tax evasion in the 1980s.

Read the full story at the New Bedford Standard-Times

Squid may become favourite UK meal as seas become warmer

December 13th, 2016 — Squid and fish that thrive in warmer waters, such as sardines and anchovies, are flourishing around the North Sea, according to fisheries data.

Squid are now being caught at 60% of survey stations in the North Sea, compared with 20% in the 1980s.

But the likes of cod are heading north, away from British waters.

Dr John Pinnegar, of the Centre for Environment, Fisheries and Aquaculture Science (Cefas), which has been monitoring North Sea fish populations for more than 100 years, said models for 2025 and beyond suggested that seawater temperatures off the UK may continue to rise.

Fishing boats are now catching species that have not been caught in the area before.

Mediterranean alternatives

“Twenty or 30 years ago we hardly saw squid in our surveys,” he told BBC News.

Dr Pinnegar, programme director for marine climate change at Cefas, said summer squid fisheries had expanded around the Moray Firth in north-east Scotland, as part of efforts to reduce over-fishing of more traditional species such as haddock and cod.

“A lot of the things we see increasing in abundance around the UK are marine animals that would probably originally [be] thought of as being Mediterranean or characteristic of the Bay of Biscay, or around Portugal or Spain,” he added.

Read the full story at BBC News 

Carlos Rafael, New Bedford’s ‘Codfather’, indicted on 27 counts

May 9, 2016 — NEW BEDFORD, Mass. — Local fishing magnate Carlos Rafael has been indicted by federal prosecutors for lying about fish catches and smuggling cash to Portugal through Logan airport in Boston, in a multi-year scheme involving hundreds of thousands of dollars, according to records filed last week and unsealed Monday.

The indictment lists 27 counts against Rafael, for charges including conspiracy, false entries and bulk cash smuggling. Rafael is alleged to have falsely reported the species of more than 815,000 pounds of fish to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) between 2012 and January of this year, according to the Office of U.S. Attorney Carmen Ortiz.

“On a yearly basis, Rafael’s routine falsification of dealer reports he submitted to NOAA created substantial discrepancies between the fishing activity he reported and the fish caught by his fishing vessels and acquired by Carlos Seafood,” the indictment states.

Bristol County Sheriff’s Office deputy Antonio M. Freitas, a Taunton resident, also is named in the indictment. Freitas is charged with two counts, one for bulk cash smuggling and one for international structuring.

Read the full story at the Cape Cod Times

MASSACHUSETTS: New Bedford’s Azorean whaleboats await major spring overhaul

March 13, 2016 — NEW BEDFORD — Major maintenance and repairs are in store this spring for the three proud Azorean whaleboats built in New Bedford between 1997 and 2000.

To pay the $23,000 estimated cost, the Azorean Maritime Heritage Society is hosting two fundraisers — one on Tuesday at Estoril in Fall River, and the other on May 21 at the Sails of Portugal Wine and Food Tasting at the New Bedford Whaling Museum.

One of the three boats, the Bela Vista, now rests on the ground floor of the Whaling Museum’s new education center, in a still unfinished space.

It still looks glorious in its wildly festive pink, blue and yellow paint, colors that don’t signify anything beyond fun and excitement in the Azorean culture.

But as Sara Quintal, society president, pointed out to a visitor, the 40-foot whaleboat suffers many maladies as the result of heavy use and uneven and sometimes harsh storage conditions.

The wetting and drying of the hull “has caused the planks to shrink,” she said. That leaves gaps and so “this boat leaks like a sieve,” she said.

Repair surveys and estimates have been done on the boats, and it seems as if almost every part and every piece will need replacement or repair to get them into shape for the next Azorean regatta, set for 2017.

Read the full story at the New Bedford Standard-Times