The Justice Department, along with National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, announced that Mark Platt of Boca Raton, Shifco, Inc., located in Hialeah, and Northern Fisheries Ltd, located in Rhode Island, were sentenced Friday, March 25, 2011, based on their earlier guilty pleas to conspiring to commit Lacey Act violations.

Platt was sentenced to three years probation, six months home confinement with electronic monitoring, and restrictions on working in the food industry and seafood industry. Further, Platt was required to complete one hundred hours of community service, including writing an article describing his conduct in the instant case, and assisting in teaching the seafood industry about COOL Regulations and Lacey Act requirements. Northern was sentenced to two years probation, a $3,500 fine and $400 special assessment. Shifco was sentenced to one year probation on each count of conviction, to run concurrently, and a $1,600 special assessment.

From January through February 2010, Platt, Shifco and Northern engaged in a scheme through which Platt oversaw the false repackaging and labeling of 1,500 pounds of frozen chum Salmon fillets. The fillets, which were Product of China, were re-labeled as being chum Salmon fillets Product of Russia. In addition, Platt and Shifco pled guilty to a scheme to re-label more than a million pounds of less marketable shrimp from Thailand, Malaysia, and Indonesia, as being from Panama, Ecuador, and Honduras. The shrimp had an estimated retail value of between $250,000 and $1,000,000.