Contact: Scott Smullen - NMFS           FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
         Dick Lavinthal -               4/19/96
         U.S. Attorney's Office (N.J.)

NEWARK SEAFOOD COMPANY GUILTY OF EXPORTING UNCERTIFIED FISH TO PORTUGAL

Camden, N.J. -- Two Newark men pled guilty today in federal court to conspiring to use forged health certificates to export frozen seafood that had not been inspected, U.S. Attorney Faith S. Hochberg announced. This is the first federal prosecution since the United States and the European Union recently reached agreement on U.S. governmental approval of U.S. seafood exports to the European Union.

Julio Pereira, 49, of 85 Rock Rd. West, Green Brook, N.J., the owner and operator of Ideal Fish & Seafood Company Inc., a seafood wholesaler at 32 Pacific St., in Newark, pled guilty to conspiracy to evade seafood export requirements on seafood shipped from Newark to Portugal, according to the U.S. Commerce Departmentþs National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Bertimo Rocha, 48, of 18 Prospect St., Belleville, N.J., Pereira's foreman, pled guilty to the same conspiracy charge, admitting that he helped carry out the scheme.

In 1994, after failing a U.S. Department of Commerce seafood inspection, Ideal began exporting frozen seafood to Portugal with forged health certificates. Defendants Perira and Rocha admitted today that they sent 21 shipments of uninspected seafood to Portugal.

Under an agreement reached with the European Union, seafood is exported to Portugal and other EU member states only after shipments are approved by NOAA or the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. The EU requires U.S.-approved seafood to be shipped with EU "health certificates" issued by either agency.

According to Assistant U.S. Attorney Mark Costello, Pereira and Rocha each face a maximum of five years in federal prison and $250,000 in fines. Sentencing has been scheduled for July 12, 1996.

Hochberg credited the Fishery Products Inspection Program of NOAAþs National Marine Fisheries Service and the agency's Law Enforcement Division, as well as NOAA's Office of the Assistant General Counsel for Fisheries, for developing the case against Pereira and Rocha. Also, New Jersey's Department of Agriculture played an important role in detection of the forged certificates.

The U.S. government was represented by Assistant U.S. Attorney Mark Costello, of the U.S. Attorney's Fraud & Public Protection Division in Newark.

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