Things aren’t looking great for New Bedford fishing mogul “The Codfather,” who has been arrested after an undercover IRS investigation for submitting falsified reports and conspiracy.
Carlos Rafael, 64, owner of Carlos Seafood, Inc. in New Bedford, Massachusetts – a top commercial fishery in New England – appeared in court along with his bookkeeper Debra Messier, 60, for lying to authorities about the quantities and species of fish his fleet caught. For years, in order to evade federal fishing quotas, fish were often mislabelled as another species that had quota left or no quota at all, while others were hidden in compartments, according to a source close to the investigation.
Image: Vice
Asked about how he prevents accurate records of his haul being reported, he replied, “We call them something else. It’s simple. We’ve been doing it for over thirty years.”
Upon further prodding – he continued:
“You will never get away with all the fish. What I’m saying is without the Feds being there or the green police being there. But since we got a lot of fish, we don’t have a problem reporting what we got. The thing is, when the guy [the dockside inspector] disappears, that’s when we got a chance to make that fish disappear and that fish disappears under a different name. Becomes one of the names where we have a lot of quota, that doesn’t make a difference. I can call them haddock. This year I’ll have 15 million pounds [of quota] of haddock. So I can call any son of a b**** haddock if the bastards are not there. I rename them. Even when they’re there, I disappear them. I could never catch 15 million. It’s impossible.”
This isn’t Rafael’s first run-in with the law. He’s been involved in several federal investigations, being prosecuted three times and convicted of tax evasion and providing false statements on landing slips for commercial fishing vessels.
“The charges arose out of an undercover investigation in which federal agents posed as organized crime figures interested in buying the fishing business,” United States Attorney Carmen M. Ortiz said in a statement.
According to the affidavit, undercover agents posed as a broker and two Russian immigrants involved in organized crime after a newspaper article on Rafael’s desire to sell his business was published. Rafael revealed he wanted to sell everything during negotiations – in his words, “the whole enchilada” – for $175 million.
Questioned about the asking price upon disclosing the annual income for 2013 and 2014 was $3 and $4 million, respectively. Rafael then revealed a statement showing combined assets of roughly $21 million. He allegedly revealed a ledger detailing how he sells fish to a New York buyer for cash, boasting about making $668,000 in six months – saying he would keep “deducting, deducting, deducting until it disappears” – using a process he referred to as “the dance.”
Image: Seafood News
Rafael had reservations – quickly brushed aside – at first upon first meeting the agents, saying:
“I could have to regret this to you [sic], because I don’t know you. You could be the IRS in here. This could be a cluster-f***. So I’m trusting you. The only thing is, I open myself because both of you is Russians and I don’t think they would have two Russians [posing as agents]. F*** me – that would be some bad luck!”
Following a court appearance in Boston on Friday, Messier was released on $10,000 bond while Rafael is being held pending a hearing this week.
