California man faces 21 years for trying to smuggle in frozen, roasted eels

Frozen roasted eels adulterated with unsafe animal drugs that already had been rejected by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. (Photo courtesy U.S. Food and Drug Administration)

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 already had been 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 on May 31 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.

Frozen roasted eels adulterated with unsafe animal drugs that already had been rejected by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. (Photo courtesy U.S. Food and Drug Administration) 

A shipment of Fang’s imported Chinese eels had been tested by the Food and Drug Administration, found to be unsafe for human consumption and rejected. Fang admitted to re-importing the rejected eels using new entry information and co-mingling 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.

There were three shipments roughly about the same size, about 21,000 kilograms, Mrozek said.

In February 2017, the eels he brought were rejected by the FDA. Then he tried to bring some of the same eels back into the U.S. in October 2017 in a second shipment that mixed some of the tainted eels with “clean” eels, Mrozek said.

The third shipment was in November 2017.

Gentian violet, leucogentian violet and malachite green are among several chemicals used in aquaculture.

Animal drugs are used to treat, control or prevent disease, control parasites, affect reproduction and growth, provide sedation (e.g., for weighing, harvest), and for skeletal marking of fish fry and fingerlings, according to Mrozek.

Seafood and fish products are temporarily detained with FDA detention holds to prevent the introduction of contaminated food product 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.

 

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