One In Five Marine Products Tied To Fraud - On Species ID, "Fresh", Wild-Caught vs. Farmed, Produced Through Slave Labor
From Los Angeles’ luxurious sushi restaurants to Latin America’s roadside ceviche stands, consumers are being lied to. The canned tuna sold on supermarket shelves in Europe or the tiger prawns grilled on Australian barbecues aren’t always what they claim to be. Up to 20 percent of fishery and aquaculture products globally are mislabelled, according to a report published this month by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization. The $195 billion industry is uniquely vulnerable to fraud due to complex supply chains and over 12,000 traded species.
“Mislabelling and fraud are more prevalent in the aquatic sector than in many other food sectors,” said Esther Garrido Gamarro, a U.N. fishery officer and one of the paper’s lead authors. “It can have real downstream impacts that most people never see.” The report—which provides the first global baseline of industry-wide wrongdoing—defines fish fraud as the deliberate deception regarding species specification for unfair economic advantage. Produced in collaboration with the International Atomic Energy Agency, the report highlights how novel nuclear forensic tools might be the solution.
Handheld X-ray devices can establish the composition of seafood tissue by identifying chemical markers unique to certain environments, while MRI technology can analyze water molecules to verify if a product has ever been frozen. Malpractices include coloring tuna to appear fresher and false sustainability claims. The most common form of fraud, however, is substitution of expensive fish products with cheaper alternatives.
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Environmentally, mislabelling hides instances of illegal fishing, exceeding quotas or the sale of critically endangered species. For example, blue shrimp caught in the protected conservation waters of the critically endangered vaquita porpoises are often shipped to Mazatlán and exported to the U.S. through forged papers to hide the environmental crimes. Selling expired products or not declaring allergens can be hazardous to human health. Many species, when consumed raw as sushi, carry risks of herring worm disease or bacterial infection. Similarly, the potent neurotoxins in puffer fish can be deadly when sold under other names. “If pregnant women or children are unknowingly eating shark, they are being exposed to potentially higher levels of mercury and heavy metals,” said Chipparoni, highlighting a 2025 report that found over 60 percent of imitation crab sold in Los Angeles grocery stores contained shark.
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https://insideclimatenews.org/news/24022026/seafood-industry-fraud-united-nations/