December 12, 2016 — NEW BEDFORD, Mass. — Documents filed in U.S. District Court in Boston Thursday show seafood mogul Carlos Rafael implicating his whole family in his alleged scheme to smuggle cash to the Azores and turn large catches of protected fish into large amounts of cash by selling them under the table.
Rafael is also quoted as boasting that he pressured Bristol County Sheriff Thomas M. Hodgson, into giving Deputy Sheriff Antonio Freitas a raise and promotion, and in turn using Freitas to get large amounts of cash around immigration and customs at Logan Airport.
The document is an official response to requests by Rafael and Freitas to be tried separately to preserve their individual rights.
The items are contained in a partial transcript of a meeting Rafael had with two men he thought were Russian businessmen but who were actually IRS agents operating under cover to learn how Rafael did business.
Rafael explained that as many as eight people in his family would make the trip to the Azores carrying cash that Freitas could bypass from customs.