[music and rushing water]
[music]
Jeff Ray: We heard that some of the people in the industry
were referring to research set aside
as the research steal aside.
Narrator: In the Northeast United States,
summer flounder, or fluke,
is among the most popular local fish.
Though it's properly managed today,
the fluke population is still rebuilding from past overfishing,
which means the catch limits are lower than most fishermen would like.
But fisheries scientists and managers need data
to monitor the fluke population
and for setting future catch limits.
In comes the Research Set-Aside Program,
a program that sets aside additional allotments of summer flounder
that fishermen could purchase,
and the proceeds were used to fund research.
So fishermen could catch more fish
giving scientists more data:
a win-win for both,
at least, that was the intention.
Jeff Ray: Certain members of the industry
that had purchased lots were underreporting
or misreporting the amount of summer flounder
that they were harvesting,
so that they could land more fish than what they actually paid for.
This whole operation worked because
fishermen and the dealers conspired to misrepresent fish
that are entering the supply chain.
So that when the NOAA quality control aspect
of the research set aside program happened,
everything looked legitimate.
Everything matched 100%.
Narrator: What investigators would soon learn
was that some of the fishermen who had bought
extra quota through this program
were using it to prevent getting fined
when they landed more fish than their original quota allowed.
Of course, fines only come when enforcement agents are onsite,
so when they weren't around,
these fishermen would not report
or mislabel the extra catch.
Jeff Ray: We discovered right around 2010
that these fishermen weren't accurately reporting
the amount of fish that they were catching.
We discovered that during two inspections
on vessels fishing out of New York.
And once we kind of got an idea of what the scheme was,
we started surveillance.
So, we started long-term covert surveillance
of these vessels each time that they offloaded.
As we did more surveillance,
we uncovered more evidence of misrepresentations
and false fishing vessel trip reports.
And we were able to develop enough probable cause
to serve search warrants.
In March of 2012,
we did seven simultaneous search warrants
on vessels,
residents, and businesses.
Those search warrants revealed significant amount of
sales invoices, purchase orders,
payments, business type journals.
We took that data and reconciled it
against the data that was reported to NOAA Fisheries
and we realized that the data submitted to NOAA
was significantly less than what
these fishermen clearly had been catching and selling.
Narrator: Over the course of four years,
with dozens of agents putting in tens of thousands of man-hours
to investigate this case,
an elaborate scheme unraveled
involving an extensive network of fishermen and dealers.
In the end,
more than 20 felonies were charged,
and over three million dollars in fines collected.
More than half a million pounds of fluke
was unreported or mislabeled,
which meant a huge increase in supply.
This drove the price of fluke down,
which had profound effects on the local fishing economy.
Logan Gregory: The RSA case was very important
to the fishermen that were operating under the law
and by the regulations.
Approximately one month after we executed the warrants for this case
the price for summer flounder went up
approximately one dollar a pound,
or almost 60%,
which allowed the legal fishermen to get more for their catch
and took a lot of black market fish off the market.
Narrator: Prices rebounded,
but other issues rippled across the industry,
leaving longer lasting effects.
Tens of thousands of pounds of scup and black sea bass
were unreported or mislabeled,
and some fluke was reported as squid.
Mislabeled product led to skewed data for all of these fisheries,
which meant fisheries managers didn't have accurate data
to set appropriate catch limits in subsequent years,
all because of a few bad actors.
Logan Gregory: At the end of the day,
our investigations really aren't about
trying to get people in trouble
or get the biggest fine or
put people in jail.
It's about gaining compliance
and what this case did was
sent a message to those who are going to circumvent the law
or the regulations,
that we're going to be out there and
and we’re going to investigate it,
and we're going to make sure that
all fishermen have a level playing field.