Wholesaler faces jail for sending ‘putrid’ fish to the U.S.

The owner of a Richmond-based seafood wholesaler is facing up to a year in U.S. prison after pleading guilty to importing previously refused food to the United States.

The Seven Seas Fish Company and owner John Heras, 78, admitted Friday in U.S. District Court in Seattle that between October 2014 and August 2015 they imported more than four tons of potentially adulterated fish into the country.

The fish had previously been refused entry after the U.S. Food and Drug Administration found that samples of frozen corvina, purchased from a seafood company in Mexico, were “too decomposed and putrid” to sell to consumers, according to a U.S. Department of Justice news release.

Prosecutors say Seven Seas arranged for the fish to enter the country anyway, claiming it would not be sold there, but rather continue on to the company’s plant in Richmond for distribution in Canada. According to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Western District of Washington, Seven Seas then broke this arrangement. Approximately 9,020 pounds of the fish was imported into the U.S.

The FDA has not found any illness linked to those who consumed the fish. Prosecutors have agreed to a probationary sentence for Heras, a Delta resident, but a determination on incarceration will be made at his sentencing hearing, scheduled for Feb. 7, 2020.

Just last month, Seven Seas was inducted into the B.C. Food and Beverage Hall of Fame. The company has agreed to pay a fine of $150,000. Postmedia has reached out to Seven Seas for comment.