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by SilasX 3563 days ago
>91% of seafood consumed in the United States is imported, and half of it is farmed. Yet only one-thousandth of 1 percent of imports are inspected for fraud.

That shouldn't, by itself, be a problem, right? Any importation is a big deal that requires a license and someone putting their name down as having responsibility for it.

Even with low inspection, as soon as you find the fraud, you fine that importer and cut them off until they have their act together, right? Why doesn't that work as an incentive to prevent blatant abuses?

2 comments

Names are cheap. If you need to buy them in bulk as a commodity, that can be arranged.

I was lucky to work in the tame minority of the fishing industry, but we sure heard our fair share of horror stories from the boats registered out of the Philippines and Thailand. Not sure what percentage was true, but the common theme is: humans and their names and families are cheap, if the buyer isn't racist.

Doesn't importation require a licensed citizen on the receiving side too though, which the government already has in a database? Those names can't be cheap.
by* itself (consider me triggered)

Agreed, I'd expect it to work that way as well.