Bribery to Import Tainted Fish Alleged : Food: Ex-FDA official and four importers are charged in payoffs and other crimes related to seafood shipments of more than 2 million pounds.

More than 2 million pounds of potentially contaminated seafood was imported over a period of several years as a result of bribes paid to federal inspectors, according to federal grand jury indictments filed Wednesday in Newark, N.J.

A former supervisor for the U.S. Food and Drug Administration at Port Newark and four importers were charged with bribery, submitting false documents and conspiracy to defraud the government in an indictment that covers transactions dating back to 1985.

U.S. Atty. Michael Chertoff called the case “one of the largest, if not the largest, dealing with corruption and fraud in FDA history.

“In any line of government work, it is hard to imagine a public trust that is more important than to those charged with ensuring the health and safety of the consumer,” Chertoff said. “This is shocking.”

He said the charges stemmed from a continuing investigation by the U.S. Customs Service into “ingrained, pervasive corruption among inspectors and (food) importers.”

About 50% of the 13 billion pounds of seafood sold in this country is imported.

In connection with the indictments, three former FDA inspectors pleaded guilty to accepting bribes and agreed to testify at trial. The three were fired or voluntarily left the FDA as a result of the investigation, Chertoff said. Three importers also entered guilty pleas on a variety of related charges Wednesday morning.

Among the tainted products entering U.S. markets were swordfish with illegal mercury levels, langoustines contaminated with bacteria indicating the presence of human waste, decomposed lobster tails and shrimp contaminated with salmonella. Virtually all of the seafood originated in Asia.

The indictments said FDA inspectors accepted bribes in return for approving the importation of seafood that already had been rejected because of contamination at other U.S. ports. Federal documents indicating that a foreign shipment was prone to bacterial contamination were destroyed, and products submitted as laboratory samples did not represent actual seafood shipments.

Roberto A. Vaccaro, a former FDA supervising consumer safety inspector from Whitestone, N.Y., was charged with 18 felony counts, including conspiracy to defraud the government, bribery and importation contrary to law.

The indictments allege that Vaccaro received $65,000 in bribes as a government employee and paid bribes to other inspectors after he left the FDA in 1987 and started a consulting firm for importers.

Thekkedajh Peethamb Menon of Short Hills, N.J., was charged with 51 counts of submitting false documents to the FDA.

Menon and Vaccaro both face more than 100 years in prison and millions of dollars in fines if convicted on all counts. Lawyers for both men said their clients are innocent.

“This is just another glaring example of how the FDA seafood inspection program is nothing but Band-Aids and mirrors and provides little consumer protection,” said Ellen Haas, executive director of Public Voice for Food & Health Policy in Washington. “Imported food regulation has always been the Achilles’ heel of FDA and they have demonstrated again an inadequacy in dealing with the problem.”

FDA Commissioner David A. Kessler called the action of the former agency employees intolerable. He said the FDA has instituted several major changes in regulatory enforcement that will prevent similar activities in the future, including rotating inspectors involved with imports, conducting bribery awareness training and emphasizing proper quality-control procedures.