The Mississippi seafood giant sold hundreds of kilos of imported frozen fish and offered it as freshly caught local snapper

Quality Poultry and Seafood Inc., the biggest seafood wholesaler on the Mississippi Gulf Coast, agreed to pay $1 million and a $150,000 tremendous, the Justice Department said. The company’s sales manager, Todd A. Rosetti, and general manager James W. Gunkel, each of Ocean Springs, Mississippi, also pleaded guilty to mislabeling fish.

Tuesday’s developments are the newest in a case linked to a well known restaurant on the Mississippi Gulf Coast: Mary Mahoney’s Old French House in Biloxi.

In May, the restaurant pleaded guilty to conspiracy to falsely label seafood and wire fraud. A co-owner/manager of Mary Mahoney’s, Anthony Charles Cvitanovich, also pleaded guilty to falsely label seafood.

The Justice Department said Tuesday that QPS admitted to participating within the fish substitution program from 2002 to November 2019. An indictment said QPS beneficial and sold fish from abroad to restaurants as an alternative choice to domestic fish that the restaurants advertised on their menus. The department said QPS also mislabeled imported goods that it sold to customers at its own retail store and cafe.

“QPS and company officials conspired with others to commit fraud for more than a decade, even while knowing they were the subject of federal investigations,” said Todd Kim, assistant attorney general for the Justice Department’s Environment and Natural Resources Division.

Todd Gee, the U.S. attorney for Southern Mississippi, said the mismarketing of imported fish lowers the worth of local catches on the Gulf Coast.

“This type of label fraud is damaging the entire local seafood market and cheating restaurant customers who have paid extra to eat a premium local product,” Gee said.

The indictment alleges that the wholesaler continued to sell frozen fish from Africa, South America and India as an alternative choice to domestic fish for greater than a 12 months, regardless that FDA agents had executed a search warrant at QPS to research the sale of mislabeled fish.

Mary Mahoney’s admitted that between December 2013 and November 2019, it fraudulently sold roughly 58,750 kilos (26,649 kilograms) of fish as a neighborhood premium species, regardless that it was not the species listed on the menu. QPS supplied seafood to Mary Mahoney’s and other restaurants and retailers.

According to court records, sentencing for Mary Mahoney and Cvitanovich is scheduled for November 18. Sentencing for QPS, Rosetti and Gunkel is scheduled for December 11.