RPV Resident Pleads Guilty in False Seafood Labeling Case

Torrance-based seafood corporation Seafood Solutions Inc. on Monday was ordered to pay $1 million in fines and community service payments for falsely labeling frozen catfish fillets as grouper.

Duke Lin, 64, of Rancho Palos Verdes, pleaded guilty to one count of trafficking in fish that had been transported and sold in violation of the Lacey Act. Lin also pleaded guilty to one count of misbranding food. Christopher Ragone, 50, of Santa Ana, pleaded guilty to two counts of misbranding food. Lin and Ragone are scheduled to be sentenced Feb. 13, according to a Department of Justice press release.

Seafood Solutions Inc. was fined $700,000 and ordered to donate $300,000 to the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation. The donation will be used to fund projects related to methodologies, databases and other research into the identification of marine organisms, according to the press release. 

Seafood Solutions and co-defendants Lin and Ragone were convicted July 25, 2011 on one count of trafficking in fish known to be transported and sold in violation of the Lacey Act.

The fish was Pangasius hypophthalmus, a species in the catfish family. That fish, which Seafood Solutions began to sell in June 2004, was falsely labeled as “Paradise Grouper” and “Falcon Baie Grouper," according to the plea agreements.

According to the press release, between July 2005 and February 2006, a wholesale distributor returned more than $400,000 worth of the product because the wholesale distributor’s customer mistakenly believed that the fish product was grouper. Seafood Solutions continued to sell and transport the fish after its return from the customer, knowing that it was misleadingly labeled, the press release stated.

Ragone sold $2 million worth of Pangasius fillets, which were misleadingly labeled, from February 2006 to April 2006.