Seafood may be one of the most commonly fraudulent foods we come in contact with, according to the ocean-conservation nonprofit Oceana. Your red snapper could actually be a tilapia fillet. That wild-caught salmon? It could be farm-raised. Crab, lobster, and scallops have also been victims of fraudulent swaps — and some of the substitutions could be harmful to human health. But there are also entire criminal rings smuggling seafood across the world. They often fish illegally and have been involved in human trafficking. Why is it so hard to catch bad actors in seafood supply chains? And how can we make sure we're getting the seafood that's on the label?
Category
😹
FunTranscript
00:00Just one bluefin tuna can sell for millions at the Toyosu Market Auction in Japan.
00:07Because of this price, there's a bustling enterprise of fake bluefin tuna.
00:11And one of the reasons for that is that it's so easy to get away with the crime.
00:15Scallops, lobster, and red snapper are also commonly faked.
00:20One analysis found that nearly 40% of fish samples tested were mislabeled.
00:26Seafood fraud is perhaps one of the most fraudulent items that consumers are coming into contact with regularly.
00:33It could be a restaurant passing off a $3 piece of tilapia as $17 red snapper.
00:39But there are also entire criminal rings smuggling fish across the world.
00:45One out of five fish caught is caught illegally.
00:49And with them, billions of pounds of other animals that weren't the targets.
00:57But stopping these bad actors is incredibly difficult.
01:00So how did counterfeit seafood become so widespread?
01:03And why is it so hard to catch the criminals?
01:11We'll start with a popular ingredient in sushi restaurants, imitation crab.
01:16It's often made of surimi, a seafood paste filled with ground-up whitefish like threadfin bream or Alaska pollock.
01:24That's the same kind in McDonald's Filet-O-Fish or in fish sticks.
01:32In this factory in Dongjin, South Korea, a machine shreds the surimi blocks into the texture of dough.
01:38Workers dump in salt, starch, sugar, and crab flavoring, often made from crab stock.
01:44Then this machine rolls the mixture into a log.
01:49Food coloring made from tomato and paprika gives it the distinct orangey-red look.
02:07This is a totally legal product, as long as it's labeled imitation crab meat.
02:13But what's illegal is trying to pass off this imitation stuff as the real thing.
02:19Like the U.K. restaurant chain Frankie and Benny's did.
02:23It admitted that more than half of its crab bruschetta was imitation crab.
02:28Suppliers have been caught trying to label cheaper crabs from Asia as expensive ones, like these Maryland Blues.
02:35Fishermen trap real Maryland Blue crabs off the east coast of the U.S.
02:40Population levels have been declining because of environmental water quality issues, especially in Chesapeake Bay.
02:49Max Valentine is a seafood fraud expert with the conservation nonprofit Oceana.
02:54And so they are being sold for astronomical prices.
02:58There's a very limited supply of them right now.
03:03Once this meat is picked out of the shell, it becomes lump crab.
03:07Those lumps are baked into things like crab cakes.
03:10So once it's been processed, it's really hard for you to tell what it is you're getting.
03:16Federal law enforcement busted a Virginia seafood supplier for labeling 400,000 pounds of imported lump crab as product of USA.
03:25A 2015 Oceana study found that nearly 40 percent of Maryland Blue crab cakes sold across Washington, D.C. and Maryland were mislabeled.
03:34They didn't contain that species of crab at all.
03:37It would turn out to be swimming crab from Southeast Asia.
03:41And it's incredibly cheaper.
03:44We gave Max some lump crab to understand how we can tell it's legit.
03:49What's really great here is that the company has put a lot of information on the back of the package.
03:56So it's telling us that it's wild-caught.
03:59It's giving us the genus and species name.
04:02We're able to tell that this is a blue swimming crab from Indonesia.
04:07But if your package doesn't have all that info, buy your Maryland Blue crabs whole and alive and get them in season from April to December.
04:17Bluefin is the most expensive kind of tuna because it's the largest, high in fat, and so rare.
04:24They're found across the North Atlantic and Pacific Oceans.
04:29In Japan, Bluefin are sold at live auction here at Toyosu Market, the largest fish market in the world.
04:37Bidders like Takayuki Shinoda have about 15 minutes to check the fresh tuna for any nicks or scratches before the action starts.
04:58With a ring of a bell, the auction is off.
05:29And as demand for this expensive fish has increased, so has its value.
05:34In 2019, a tuna set a record at Toyosu when it sold for $3.1 million.
05:49Pacific Bluefin stocks are overfished, and the yellowfin population is headed toward collapse.
05:59It's a huge fish.
06:03It takes years for it to grow up there.
06:07But in 10, 20, or 30 years, tuna will be gone.
06:19Overfishing and illegal activity are a major cause.
06:23In 2018, Spanish authorities uncovered a group that sold over $14 million worth of illegally fished tuna between Malta and Spain.
06:32Police arrested dozens.
06:34The tuna fishery is especially difficult to manage because tuna are migratory in nature.
06:41And as a result, vessels targeting tuna are usually fishing across multiple jurisdictions.
06:47But there's another type of fraud, fake tuna.
06:50That includes trying to sell escolar, a cheap fish that could have dangerous levels of mercury, as white tuna.
06:57If you can be successful at that fraud, the returns are huge.
07:01Oceana's 2013 study of fish DNA found that 59% of tuna samples at U.S. restaurants and grocery stores were mislabeled.
07:09So how can you make sure you're not getting robbed?
07:12If you're going for bluefin, maybe save it for a special occasion, because the real stuff is usually sold at high-end restaurants.
07:19If you're seeing bluefin tuna at your local supermarket, I'd say that's probably fraudulent.
07:25Grocery stores do sell yellowfin, but make sure to check the price.
07:29This is incredibly low for about $8.
07:34We would expect a tuna steak of this size to be quite a bit more expensive.
07:40Certainly over $15, closer to $20.
07:43And then peruse that label for any red flags.
07:46This package says yellowfin on the outside, but just tuna on the inside.
07:51And so that makes me concerned that this isn't in fact yellowfin tuna.
07:55It says that this is processed and packaged in Indonesia.
08:01And then this label is telling us that it's a product of Venezuela.
08:05And so that is very concerning.
08:08And the ingredients include carbon monoxide to get that bright red color.
08:13It's allowed as a meat colorant in the U.S., but banned in Canada and much of Europe because it can cover up spoilage.
08:19I probably would not have purchased this for myself.
08:22It would raise too many red flags for me.
08:28Wild scallops are a popular mollusk often found in bays or shallow waters.
08:33Peru exported $88 million worth of scallops in 2019.
08:38And over half of that comes from here in the Situra Bay.
08:43It's rich in all kinds of fish, especially yellowfin tuna.
08:51Fishermen dredge out the bivalves from deep in the seabed and use nets to haul them onto boats.
08:57Scallops die soon after they're taken from the water.
09:00They're transported to processing facilities like this one,
09:03where workers dump them into huge piles on deshelling lines.
09:08These shuckers remove the valuable meat at lightning speeds.
09:13Then they wash them to remove any residue from the shell or seed.
09:19The U.S. is one of the world's biggest scallop importers.
09:23Here in New York City, chef Preston Clark sells a plate of three scallops from Massachusetts for about $55.
09:30Those are like some of the best things the ocean has to offer.
09:33And it's very limited, very expensive.
09:35And that price makes it really attractive to counterfeiters.
09:39Criminals have been caught cutting skate or whitefish into coins to pass them off as scallops.
09:47They oftentimes get injected with like a saltwater or saline solution to make them look plumper,
09:53to make them weigh more, to make them more expensive.
09:56All that's illegal.
09:58Give them the guillotine if you ask me, because I think it's really that, I think it's that terrible.
10:02You know, you never want to serve anything fraudulent.
10:05It ruins your complete credibility as a chef.
10:07Chef Clark says the most surefire way to know you're getting scallops is, well, to see a shell.
10:12But if you don't have that luxury.
10:15Then also I'm looking for this muscle here.
10:17This is this muscle called the abductor muscle.
10:19That's one way to tell that the scallops are really legit, if you don't get them fresh in the clam.
10:25He also suggests learning the seasons.
10:27Nantucket Bay scallops are fished from October to March.
10:30If you were in, you know, say Nebraska in the middle of May, I would be skeptical.
10:40Then there's salmon, one of the most popular fish in the world.
10:45If you're chowing down on pink fish, you might actually be eating rainbow trout.
10:49Or your salmon could be labeled all wrong.
10:53Sometimes you can see farm-raised salmon sold as wild-caught salmon.
11:00In a study of 82 salmon samples from across the U.S., Oceana found almost half were mislabeled.
11:06Most of it was farm-raised salmon sold as wild-caught.
11:11Wild salmon can cost more than double the price of farmed ones.
11:17It's caught in the northern hemisphere, like here in Alaska.
11:21Kyle Lee is fishing Copper River king salmon, the biggest and most expensive wild salmon in the Pacific.
11:26Retail price, $1,500, $2,000 right here.
11:30Fishing here legally means following a lot of rules.
11:33Like buying a $25,000 permit and using a net designed specifically to catch salmon.
11:40A lot larger mesh size, around 6 inches, so the smaller fish swim right through it.
11:45Not only is there a higher risk of capsizing as Kyle fishes in these shallow waters,
11:50but there's a huge risk of coming back empty-handed.
11:54King! King!
11:57F**k! F**k!
12:02Give me a second, I'll explain in a second.
12:05F**k!
12:08Should've pulled more of this s**t out.
12:11And because the king was so large, it overpowered me and it ended up swimming out.
12:15But if they're able to catch one, it's big money.
12:17Copper River kings can run for over $100 a pound.
12:21Yeah, go! Go!
12:25Oh, f**k!
12:27Woo!
12:30We just caught this toad of a Copper River king salmon.
12:33This one probably weighs probably 30, 35 pounds.
12:38Very excited that we got the first one on board.
12:42Meanwhile, farm-raised salmon grow up in large ocean pens.
12:46Just like humans, fish can get sick.
12:48And when you've got a lot of fish in a pen banging into each other, you can get scrapes and cuts.
12:53I would say that most, if not all, farm-raised fish, they use antibiotics,
12:58which can often be transferred to the flesh that we're then eating.
13:04This fillet we found in a New York City store was labeled raised in the wild.
13:09Well, that's the trick, right?
13:10You would think that this is a wild-caught salmon,
13:13but really it's just raised and caught in an ocean pen.
13:15So how can you tell the difference between the two?
13:18Salmon fillets that are raised in a farm,
13:22they tend to be a little lighter pink in color
13:25rather than sort of that deep, vibrant red that you get with your wild-caught salmon.
13:32Your farm-raised salmon fillets are going to have more of that marbling,
13:37tend to be a bit meatier, bigger, thicker fillets
13:41because they're not having to work as hard surviving in the ocean versus surviving in pens.
13:49No marathons have been run by this fish, that's for sure.
13:55Red snapper is one of the most prized fish in the Gulf of Mexico.
13:59It's a notorious victim of counterfeiting because it's so expensive.
14:04The fish is hard to breed in captivity,
14:06so in the U.S., what we eat is wild-caught.
14:09Fishermen catch it off the coast of states like Florida, Mississippi, and Alabama.
14:14In its 2013 report, Oceana tested 120 red snapper samples across the U.S.,
14:20and all but seven were mislabeled.
14:23It's white on the inside, so it's really easy to fake.
14:26So this is snapper.
14:28This is black bass.
14:30This is striped bass.
14:32And this is brunswick.
14:33This is striped bass.
14:35And this is brunswick.
14:37They definitely don't cost the same.
14:39And unfortunately, unless you've worked with fish all your life,
14:43if you're looking at two white fillets, it can be really hard to make that distinction.
14:50Often what you're getting is a cheaper farmed fish like tilapia.
14:54Tilapia can be a fourth of the price of red snapper, and it's not as healthy.
14:58It doesn't have the omega-3s or B12 levels that red snapper does.
15:03So if you love the sweet and nutty flavor profile of red snapper,
15:07how can you tell you're actually buying the real fish?
15:10We asked Chef Clark.
15:12It's great looking fish.
15:14These come from Florida.
15:16The smell, it's like super fresh like the ocean.
15:21I'm gonna cut this big one first.
15:23He says to buy the fish whole, and don't get intimidated by the head.
15:26Most seafood counters will slice it up for you.
15:29But if you can only buy it in fillet form, ask for skin on, so you can see that red color.
15:35Shape and feel can be giveaways too.
15:38Tilapia are a less angular fish, head to tail,
15:41while red snapper go from a wide body to a tiny tail.
15:45So tilapia is a bit firmer.
15:49It's pretty solid if you give it a squeeze
15:53versus your red snapper tends to be a little bit softer and more delicate.
16:03Lobster is another tricky case.
16:06They're found across the globe,
16:08but some of the most expensive ones live off the coast of Maine.
16:12For the most part, around the world,
16:14the majority of lobster species don't have two claws like this.
16:17So we're fairly unique in that regard.
16:20Here, fishers like Kurt Brown call tilapia,
16:23they call themselves lobstermen.
16:25We're hauling up the trap right here.
16:28Everybody has their own buoy colors,
16:31and that's how you know whose trap is whose.
16:34We're in 28 feet of water right here, and let's see what we catch.
16:38There it is.
16:40Kurt has to haul in the traps one by one.
16:42So they smell the bait in the trap,
16:46and they crawl into the trap,
16:48and they get up in here,
16:50and it's difficult for them to get back up.
16:53Every trap is required to have these escape vents
16:56to protect juvenile lobsters.
16:59These crustaceans can take up to seven years to mature,
17:03and for lobstermen to catch them,
17:05they have to meet the legal limits for size.
17:07The minimum size is 3 1⁄4 inches carapace length.
17:11The maximum size is 5 inches carapace length.
17:14Bigger lobsters are the breeders.
17:17A lobsterman like Kurt can empty up to 300 traps a day,
17:21or about 900 pounds of lobster.
17:23Live, fresh lobster can top $30 a pound.
17:27That can be more than four times the price of shrimp.
17:30Counterfeiters can see a wide margin of return if they can dupe buyers.
17:34If you're getting lobster ravioli where it's been really chopped up
17:39and it's inside of those little shells,
17:41it can be hard to know whether that's lobster or not.
17:43In lump form, counterfeiters might swap in cheaper crustaceans,
17:47like the meat of spiny Caribbean lobsters,
17:50which don't have claws and are less sweet,
17:51and can be half the price.
17:54In 2016, an Inside Edition investigation
17:57accused the restaurant chain Red Lobster of using langostino,
18:01which is closer to crawfish in its lobster bisque.
18:04The chain has since changed its website
18:07to include that it sources and uses langostino.
18:10But there's an even more dubious swap.
18:12Fish.
18:14That same 2016 investigation found that
18:17more than a third of U.S. lobster samples tested
18:18were actually cheaper whitefish, like whiting or pollock.
18:22So how can we find the legit shellfish?
18:25Well, if you're buying them yourself, get them whole.
18:28This is the best way.
18:30To make sure that you're not dealing with any nonsense.
18:32It's to make sure that you just get them fresh
18:34and break them down yourself.
18:36You want to make sure they're alive, also.
18:38Once the lobsters are dead, the process of rigor mortis starts
18:40and it starts to decompose the meat.
18:42So you want the lobsters to be as alive as possible.
18:49You want to make sure that you get a whole piece of claw.
18:53I think the claw meat is a little bit softer.
18:57I think the tail meat is a little bit tougher.
19:00And if you're at a restaurant,
19:02order dishes that contain lobster closest to its whole form,
19:05avoiding pastas and soup with shredded lobster.
19:08Once it's in cooked form, chopped meat,
19:10you can't really tell. You have no idea.
19:14Caviar is one of the most commonly faked foods on the planet.
19:17It's just a small, little tasty ball.
19:21And it's incredibly expensive.
19:24It's difficult to harvest.
19:26Caviar comes from the roe, or eggs, of sturgeon.
19:30The majority of wild sturgeon species are critically endangered,
19:34so almost all of the caviar we eat comes from fish raised in pens.
19:39This small caviar farm in Madagascar's highlands is Africa's first.
19:43The company Asapenser raises six species of sturgeon for its roe.
19:48In captivity, the fish can take 10 years to mature,
19:51before their eggs are ready.
19:54Processors remove the egg sac from the dead fish.
20:13Then they rub it over a metal grate.
20:18Salting the eggs helps enhance the flavor,
20:21and aging them for at least four months in fridges lets them develop nutty notes.
20:26Asapenser sells it under the label Rova.
20:29A kilo of it can go for over $5,000.
20:32The cost is on par with many European brands.
20:35And that's really attractive to counterfeiters.
20:37One European study of 149 caviar samples found 10% weren't fish eggs.
20:43Some criminals make fake caviar from sturgeon farm waste, like organs,
20:47which they shape into spheres.
20:49Conservationists say that could be harmful to human health.
20:52Counterfeiters also might try to sell the eggs of cheaper fish.
20:56A company in the U.S. was busted for passing off the roe of American passers-by.
21:01They say the roe is used to make caviar.
21:03A company in the U.S. was busted for passing off the roe of American paddlefish as caviar.
21:09The owner was sentenced to two years in prison.
21:12Total fines amounted to $160,000.
21:16And as caviar demand surges, the problem could get worse.
21:21So say you want to splurge.
21:23How do you make sure you're buying the real deal?
21:25Well, if you're at a restaurant, ask to see the tin.
21:28Every package should have a non-resealable label.
21:30And any commercial tin imported into the U.S. should have a certificate label.
21:35Something like this.
21:37It will tell you the species of caviar, that it was raised in captivity, the country of origin, and the harvest year.
21:43You could also use the hot water test.
21:46Real caviar will harden in hot water as the proteins cook.
21:49But if it's artificial caviar, it'll dissolve.
21:54So who exactly is committing these seafood crimes?
21:58It can be ships fishing without a license, operating where they're not allowed to, or using illegal fishing gear.
22:05They often sail through the remote waters of what's called the high seas.
22:09The region makes up nearly two-thirds of the oceans.
22:12And there's no one government responsible for protecting it.
22:16It's like the Wild West.
22:18So it's easier to get away with crime.
22:21The nonprofit Sea Shepherd patrols oceans to stop illegal fishing.
22:25It's used controversial tactics in the past against whaling boats in the Antarctic,
22:31like blocking ships and throwing rotten butter on decks.
22:34The organization says it doesn't use these techniques anymore.
22:37Instead, it partners with local governments to patrol protected waters alongside their coast guards,
22:43like these eight African nations.
22:45We provide the ship, we provide the crew, we provide the fuel,
22:49and our government partner provides the law enforcement agents
22:52who serve on board our ship to make arrests of illegal vessels.
22:57Captain Peter Hammerstedt has spent decades chasing down illegal vessels.
23:04Sea Shepherd caught this ship off the coast of Liberia in 2019.
23:09It attempted to flee when authorities found it fishing in a prohibited area.
23:15It's one example of what's called IUU — illegal, unreported, or unregulated fishing.
23:22It's believed that IUU fishing is responsible for 20 percent of the global catch of fish.
23:29The crew had tried to hide the name of its ship with a fishing net.
23:45The oceans off West Africa see the highest rates of illegal catches in the world.
23:49It's estimated that 40 percent of global IUU fishing happens here.
23:55This shrimp trawler was caught off the coast of Gabon.
23:59The crew was using nets with weaving that was too small.
24:03Just 0.2 percent of the seafood weighed on board was shrimp.
24:07The other 99.8 percent was bycatch, meaning not the targeted animal.
24:13Most of it was thrown back in the ocean, but hardly any of it survived the ordeal.
24:17By some estimates, 20 million protected or endangered animals are caught as bycatch every year.
24:24Animals like turtles and sharks, and they're thrown back dead or alive.
24:48After seeing the conditions on board, the government of Gabon suspended all shrimp trawling in its waters.
24:56Sea Shepherd also caught this Italian shrimp trawler off the coast of Gambia, fishing with an undersized net.
25:04Although the shrimp was labeled sustainably caught, 99.9 percent of the catch on board was other species, like these sharks and octopuses.
25:13Sometimes Sea Shepherd will simply pull out illegal fishing gear it finds, like these 21,000 meters of gill net in the Southern Ocean.
25:21After hauling continuously for more than a hundred hours, all this gear has now been recovered.
25:28This has ensured that the gear cannot illegally take any more life in these waters,
25:34as well as the gear being evidence to help prosecute.
25:37Other times, ships are seized by the country's Navy or Coast Guard.
25:41International police forces wanted this ship for years, for illegally fishing Chilean sea bass off Antarctica.
25:47In 2016, Indonesian authorities caught it operating in their waters.
25:51They detained the crew and blew up the vessel.
25:54In other cases, the vessels are fined, and hopefully that fine is high enough to deter them from fishing.
26:00Sea Shepherd has assisted in arresting 96 ships since 2016.
26:06These are often part of massive illicit fishing operations, sailing far from home.
26:11One study found that 10 companies owned about a quarter of the IUU fishing boats reported globally.
26:17And eight of the companies were from China.
26:20The other two were from South Korea.
26:22All these illegal catches are making our global overfishing problem worse.
26:27Today, nearly 40% of the world's fish stocks are unsustainably fished.
26:32But it's not just the health of oceans that's at stake.
26:35There's a real human rights element to this as well.
26:39I've seen terrible living conditions on board some of these ships.
26:44I've seen people die.
26:46There's a real human rights element to this as well.
26:49I've seen terrible living conditions on board some of these fishing vessels.
26:54Peter found these beds on boats arrested off the coast of West Africa.
26:58If the human rights of those workers were respected,
27:02then it wouldn't be profitable for some of these operators to be in business at all.
27:06That's why we're seeing an increase in human trafficking and forced labor by fishing operators.
27:12In December 2021, his crew came across a Chinese squid boat trawling off the Galapagos Islands.
27:28He asked if COVID had made it to the United States yet.
27:33This was a year and a half after the pandemic started.
27:37That's how long this guy had been at sea without any access to any news source.
27:41One investigation found fishermen often endured inhumane living conditions,
27:46up to 20-hour workdays, withholding of passports and salaries, and physical and mental abuse.
27:54One of the main challenges is the lack of government oversight across seafood supply chains.
28:00The U.S. imports 80 percent of the seafood it consumes,
28:04but inspects just 1 to 2 percent of it at ports of entry.
28:08We need concrete action by our legislature and our federal agencies
28:14to ensure that all seafood that is ending up on our plates is safe,
28:20legally caught, responsibly sourced, and honestly labeled.
28:24But for now, it often comes down to the consumer.
28:28Blue crabs are hands down the meanest thing in the ocean.
28:32Those things are full of spite and aggression.
28:35They will jump at you trying to get you with their pinchers.
28:57For more UN videos visit www.un.org