CRESSKILL — The founder of a New Jersey seafood company was ordered to pay more than $64 million in restitution today for mislabeling a cheap variety of catfish from Vietnam as higher-quality seafood as it was marketed along the East Coast. Thomas George, 61, who stepped down last year as chief executive of the Sterling Seafood Corp. in Bergen County,...
CRESSKILL — The founder of a New Jersey seafood company was ordered to pay more than $64 million in restitution today for mislabeling a cheap variety of catfish from Vietnam as higher-quality seafood as it was marketed along the East Coast.
Thomas George, 61, who stepped down last year as chief executive of the Sterling Seafood Corp. in Bergen County, was trying to avoid paying more than $63 million in tariffs to the United States government, federal authorities said. Under the scheme, he imported more than 11 million pounds of the catfish from 2004 through 2006 to be sold as sole and grouper fillets to supermarkets and restaurants.
U.S. District Court Judge Faith Hochberg in Newark ordered the restitution as she sentenced George to spend 22 months in federal prison and serve a year of supervised release. When George pleaded guilty in January to importing falsely labeled goods and selling falsely labeled fish in the United States with the intent to defraud, he had also agreed to make a $50,000 community service payment to the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation.
The money will be used for research into identifying fish and other marine organisms.
George, who lives in Old Tappan, founded Sterling Seafood in Cresskill in 1989 after emigrating from India in 1975 and becoming a U.S. citizen. The firm imports dozens of types of seafood from Asia and South America, including red snapper, mackerel and rock lobster.
Federal authorities said his scheme began in 2003, when the United States imposed a tariff on all imports of cheap Vietnamese catfish to keep overseas companies from undercutting the prices of U.S. catfish producers. The tariff imposed a duty of nearly 64 percent on all Vietnamese catfish and was adjusted based on market conditions, but did not apply to imported grouper and sole.
Federal authorities said George first began working with a seafood distribution company in Vietnam to import the catfish under other names. They began forging purchase orders, health certificates, manifests, packing lists and other documents to further the scheme.
Between 2004 and 2005, George also purchased more than $500,000 of mislabeled Vietnamese catfish imported by a Virginia corporation and sold that catfish throughout the United States as well, according to federal authorities.
A 2009 congressional study and seafood industry experts contend the illicit practice of passing cheap fish off as higher-grade species is becoming more common.
Immigrations and Customs Enforcement began probing Sterling Seafood in 2004 after U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents tested some of the fish and realized it was not grouper, according to a press statement released today by U.S. Attorney Paul J. Fishman.