“This is the stupidest thing I ever did,” ‘Codfather’ is sentenced to 46 months for skirting tax and fishing regulations

September 26, 2017 International News, National, New England

Carlos Rafael, the New Bedford, Mass. fishing magnate whose brash business style earned him the nickname “The Codfather,” was sentenced to nearly four years in prison Monday for tax evasion and flouting fishing quotas, a case that could impact the ability of hundreds of fishermen to continue working out of the port where he ran his illicit enterprise. In the federal courthouse in Boston, Rafael, 65, told US District Judge William G. Young he mislabeled more than 700,000 pounds of fish not out of greed, but to protect workers whose jobs were threatened by limits on dwindling cod stocks. click here to read the story 15:04

And just four years ago, we posted this article that should be revisited at this time. Carlos Rafael and His Fish Are the American Dream – click here to read the story.

Owner of One of the Nation’s Largest Commercial Fishing Businesses Sentenced for Falsifying Records & Smuggling Proceeds Abroad, US Justice Dept. click here to read the presser

'Codfather', Assistant Attorney General Andrew Lelling, Carlos Rafael, Conservation Law Foundation, fisherman Shawn Machie, sentenced, skirting tax and fishing regulations, US District Judge William G. Young

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The New England groundfish debacle (Part III): who or what is at fault? Nils E. Stolpe/FishNet

It took me a while to decide how to most accurately describe the situation that has been visited upon the New England fishing communities that are and since colonial times have been dependent on the groundfish fisheries.

NILS STOLPE: The New England groundfish debacle (Part IV): Is cutting back harvest really the answer?

While it’s a fact that’s hardly ever acknowledged, the assumption in fisheries management is that if the population of a stock of fish isn’t at some arbitrary level, it’s because of too much fishing. Hence the term “overfished.” Hence the mandated knee jerk reaction of the fisheries managers to not enough fish; cut back on fishing. What of other factors? They don’t count. It’s all about fishing, because fishing is all that the managers can control; it’s their Maslow’s Hammer. When it comes to the oceans it seems as if it’s about all that the industry connected mega-foundations that support the anti-fishing ENGOs with hundreds of millions of dollars a year in “donations” are interested in controlling. Read the article here

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