Pomona man pleads guilty to smuggling drugged eels

A Pomona man with a wholesale food business in Industry faces a possible 21 years in federal prison for trying to sneak in frozen, roasted eels adulterated with unsafe animal drugs that were already rejected by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

Kevin Sheng Hsiang Fang, 41, and Yong Chang Trading

Co., doing business as Heng Xing Foods, each pleaded guilty Wednesday to smuggling and introducing the food into interstate commerce, said Thom Mrozek, a spokesman for the U.S. attorney’s office.

Fang is scheduled for sentencing Aug. 14 at a Los Angeles federal courthouse.

“This individual showed complete disregard for the health and safety of the U.S. consumer by knowingly bringing tainted products into the market,” Eddy Wang, acting special agent in charge at Homeland Security Investigations in Los Angeles, said in a statement.

A shipment of Fang’s imported Chinese eels had been tested by the FDA, found to be unsafe for human consumption and rejected. Fang admitted to reimporting the rejected eels using new entry information and commingling them with other eels to evade detection, Mrozek said.

He tried to smuggle in the roasted eels adulterated with gentian violet and leucogentian violet, and others with malachite green, in 2017, court documents show. It is unclear why the additives were used and how many pounds of the eels he attempted to sneak in.

Seafood and fish products are temporarily placed under FDA detention holds to prevent the introduction of contaminated food into commerce, Mrozek said. The FDA advises importers of the holds, and waits for the test results.

“Federal laws that prohibits the smuggling of certain food products are intended to protect consumers from hazards to their health,” U.S. Attorney Martin Estrada said in a statement.

The FDA, Homeland Security Investigations and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service investigated the case.