Counterfish

There is a large - a really large – market in counterfeit fish. No, really. The grouper might not be grouper at all. There are people busily selling all sorts of different fish to restaurants as grouper. Investigators have not even been able to identify some of the fish involved.

In this area that some consider the national capital of grouper — more than three-quarters of the U.S. catch comes from Florida's Gulf and a grouper sandwich downed at a waterside bar is cherished as an authentically Floridian repast — the finding has amplified a local outrage that, experts say, points to a larger national problem of fish fakery.

"This problem is rampant across America," said Mark Kinsey, a special agent for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration who enforces marine resource laws. "And it isn't just grouper."

Much of the reason for the questionable grouper, red snapper and other fish stems from a simple matter of supply and demand, regulators and industry officials say.

With the popularity of grouper rising nationwide and the domestic catch at times limited by federal guidelines, restaurateurs have relied on imports to fill the gap.

The quality of those imports has proved harder to control, even as the lower prices — often a small fraction of domestic prices — have made the imports irresistible.

In many instances, not only is the "grouper" in fact farm-raised Asian catfish from Vietnam or other species that swim with grouper, but the filets have shown signs of salmonella and traces of illegal carcinogenic fungicides, NOAA law enforcement officials said.

In December, a Panama City businessman pleaded guilty to marketing more than a million pounds of Asian catfish as grouper, a remarkable volume considering that the domestic annual catch is about 10 million pounds. Yet law enforcement officers said they think larger cases are out there.

A man sells counterfish equal to 10% of the annual legal catch and there are bigger cases out there? Funny, but there are more and more seafood restaurants well away from the seacoasts these days that boast of flying seafood in daily. They don't mention that the seafood needed a passport to get here.