GAO: Agencies must collaborate on seafood fraud
A congressional watchdog agency told a Senate subcommittee in charge of ocean health that the federal government must do a better job at collaborating on enforcement involving seafood fraud.
Americans consume about 5 billion pounds of seafood annually. However, some seafood is transshipped through intermediary countries to avoid paying customs duties, and some products are 'over treated,' or in other words are subject to excessive amounts of water or ice to increase their weight. There are also cases of substituting a different species of seafood for the species listed on the label.
'Seafood fraud is an inherently deceptive activity and poses challenges for federal agencies to detect and prevent it while still maintaining the flow of legitimate seafood goods into and within the United States,' the Government Accountability Office said in its report to the subcommittee. 'Some fraudulent activity can even occur openly.'
The GAO noted a case in 2007 where imported puffer fish, which contains potentially deadly toxin, was mislabeled as monkfish and people became seriously ill.
The three federal agencies in charge of seafood imports are:
' Customs and Border Protection, which ensures proper duties are paid.
' The National Marine Fisheries Service, which provides fee-for-service inspections by request of the seafood industry.
' The Food and Drug Administration, which is responsible for ensuring that the nation's food supply, including seafood, is safe, wholesome and properly labeled.
The GAO criticized the agencies for failing to collaborate on detecting and preventing seafood fraud.
'Specifically, they have not identified a common goal, established joint strategies, or agreed on roles and responsibilities,' the GAO said. 'As a result, the agencies have not taken advantage of opportunities to share information that could benefit each agency's efforts to detect and prevent seafood fraud, nor have they identified similar or sometimes overlapping activities that could be better coordinated to use limited resources more efficiently.'
To review the complete GAO report is available here. ' Chris Gillis
GAO: Agencies must collaborate on seafood fraud
