DEFENDANTS SENTENCED FOR CONSPIRACY
TO ILLEGALLY IMPORT $2.8 MILLION OF UNDERSIZED LOBSTER

Marcos Daniel Jiménez, United States Attorney for the Southern District of Florida; Richard C. Livingston, Special Agent in Charge, National Marine Fisheries Service; and Jesus Torres, Special Agent in Charge, United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), announced today that Pedro Alejandro Pereira and Peter L. Silver were sentenced by United States District Court Judge Shelby Highsmith in connection with a conspiracy that exported more than $2.8 million worth of undersized spiny lobster from Nicaragua to the United States, in violation of the Federal Lacey Act, Title 16, United States Code, Sections 3372 and 3373, prohibiting such imports, and in violation of the anti-smuggling provisions of Title 18, United States Code, Section 545.

Pereira, who admitted by his plea that over a five year period he and others illegally shipped approximately 190,000 pounds of frozen spiny lobster into the United States contrary to the laws of Nicaragua, which set a minimum legal size of 5 ounces, was sentenced to imprisonment for a period of 37 months, followed by supervised release for a period of two years. Silver received a prison sentence of a year and a day, also followed by supervised release for a period of two years.

According to Court records and a detailed statement of facts provided to the Court, between March 1996 and June 2001, Pereira and Silver were involved in more than 85 shipments of frozen lobster tail, harvested in Nicaragua and destined for a wholesaler in Virginia and other companies in the United States. Since 1988, Nicaragua has placed minimum limits on the size of spiny lobster in order to protect that segment of their domestic fisheries from over-fishing and collapse of the species by loss of the reproductive stock. The spiny lobster fishery is a significant source of employment and revenue in Nicaragua. The Nicaraguan lobster population is also the parent population for spiny lobster stocks elsewhere in the Caribbean Basin. Massive harvesting of immature spiny lobsters in the Western Caribbean, as documented in this case, can cause severe, long-term population declines in Nicaragua and other regions which rely on that breeding stock, including Florida waters. Spiny lobster, commonly marketed as “rock lobster” is regulated throughout the Caribbean Basin by strict size limit laws in order to maintain a viable reproductive stock. Scientific research has established that below an equivalent tail weight of 5 ounce, spiny lobster are unable to reproduce and repopulate the species. NOAA Special Agents worked closely with Nicaraguan enforcement and legal authorities to uncover the conspiracy to poach, mislabel, and transport in excess of 900,000 undersized lobsters.

Pereira and Silver both admitted that, in concert with others, they implemented a scheme to mis-label and ship undersized lobster to the United States using a coding system not recognized in the ordinary practice of the lobster industry. By falsely labeling boxes of frozen undersized lobster as “XX,” “XXX,” and “XXXX,” and other deceptive practices, the conspirators sought to conceal that those boxes held 2, 3, and 4 ounce tails - all below the legal limit for processing and trade under Nicaraguan law. Twice, in 1997 and in 1998, the operation in Nicaragua was fined by Inspectors from the Nicaraguan Fisheries Department for processing and attempting to export to the United States spiny lobster tails that did not meet the 5 ounce size requirement. The government also established that in correspondence to Silver in 1997, Pereira acknowledged his awareness of the size limitation in Nicaraguan law, but assured his coconspirator that a way to bring in the small tails would be found and it should not be a cause for worry.

Mr. Jiménez commended the investigative efforts of the National Marine Fisheries Service, the Nicaraguan authorities, the Florida Fish & Wildlife Commission, and United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement. This case is being prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney Thomas Watts-FitzGerald.