Thread: Federal Agents Raid Seattle Fish Processor

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/391418_ocean10.html

Federal agents raid Seattle fish processor

Last updated December 9, 2008 9:06 p.m. PT
By PAUL SHUKOVSKY
P-I REPORTER

Federal agents raided a Seattle fish-processing company Tuesday morning and impounded documents, but they left without halting operations, seizing fish or ordering any product recalls.

Agents from Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Food and Drug Administration served a search warrant at Ocean Beauty Seafoods LLC about 9 a.m., said Tom Sunderland, Ocean Beauty's director of marketing. Ocean Beauty's offices are east of the Ballard Bridge along the Lake Washington Ship Canal.

Sunderland said he's at a loss to explain what it was the agents were looking for, saying only that they "impounded historical stuff" related to imported seafood.

The FDA referred comment to federal prosecutor Patti Lally. She declined to comment.

Ocean Beauty, which employs about 300 people at its Seattle headquarters and processing plant, is a shore-based processor of salmon, which it buys from independent fishermen, Sunderland said. The company supplies many species of seafood to restaurants and supermarkets from its nine fresh-fish distribution facilities in the Western United States.

"Clearly they couldn't be focusing on any current product safety issue," said Sunderland, who noted that the agents left without impounding any fish or ordering any product recalls. "After three or four hours, we were back in business as usual," he said.

Ocean Beauty buys fish from overseas vendors and also sends salmon to Asia for "low-level processing," such as filleting, and then reimports it.

P-I reporter Paul Shukovsky can be reached at 206-448-8072 or paulshukovsky@seattlepi.com.

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Oh WOW thank goodness, I was worried the OBLers got the raids stopped altogether! at least it has been looking that way! until now