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Subject: Japanese-Owned Tennessee Shell Company Pays $1 Million...
Date: Fri, 24 Jul 1998 13:05:36 EDT
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Japanese-Owned Tennessee Shell Company Pays $1 Million In Restitution For
Illegally Buying And Transporting Overseas Thousands Of Pounds Of Freshwater
Mussels, One Of The United States' Most Valuable And Least Understood Wildlife
Resources
MEMPHIS, Tenn.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--July 24, 1998--
One Million For Mussels
Veronica F. Coleman, United States Attorney for the Western District of
Tennessee; H. Dale Hall, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Acting Regional
Director; and Gary Meyers, Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency Executive
Director, announced today that the Camden, Tennessee-based, Japanese-owned
Tennessee Shell Company pled guilty to a felony in U.S. District Court in
Jackson, Tennessee, and will pay $1 million in restitution for purchasing
thousands of pounds of illegally taken freshwater mussels from rivers in
Michigan, Ohio, Kentucky and West Virginia.
This is the largest amount of restitution ever paid as a result of a
federal criminal investigation into the illegal commercial exploitation of
wildlife resources. U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service special agents, state
wildlife officers, and the Department of Justice made the case after a 4-year
investigation into the company's multi-million dollar trade activities.
The largest shell buying/exporting company in the United States and a
subsidiary of Kogen Trading Company, Ltd., of Tokyo, Japan, Tennessee Shell
Company pled guilty to one felony Lacey Act count. The federal Lacey Act
prohibits interstate commerce in wildlife protected under state or federal
law and thereby enables federal law enforcement officers to assist states in
protecting their wildlife resources.
According to Ms. Coleman, the Tennessee Shell Company purchased the large
and valuable mussels from independent buyers and divers, with the full
knowledge that they had been taken from waters where state law prohibited
their harvest. "What this case boils down to is the plundering of America's
wildlife, for profit," said Ms. Coleman.
"While freshwater mussels are not cuddly creatures with eyelashes, they
are hugely important in the biological scheme of things," said Acting
Regional Director Hall. "They are the proverbial 'canaries in the coal
mine,' warning us of danger by detecting and filtering out pollutants and
toxic chemicals in the water that may affect human health. They are also a
food source for other animals and an anchor for plants on the riverbed. But
they are being wiped out as a result of human activities, and, in this case,
because of greed," he said.
"As commercial quantities of shells became scarce in legal areas of the
South, prices soared from $2-3 to as much as $13 per pound at the time of
this investigation," said Director Myers. "Tennessee Shell and its suppliers
began looking for any source of shells, legal or otherwise, which led them to
the protected mussel beds. Today, however, the company is paying a high
price for its illegal activities," he said.
A Federal Grand Jury in Jackson, Tennessee, has indicted 20 individuals
for 136 counts of violating the Lacey Act, with regard to fresh water mussels.
To date, 19 defendants have pled guilty, and one has entered a pretrial
diversion agreement in U S. District Court in Jackson, resulting in a total
of nearly $67,000 in restitution ordered to be paid to the State of Michigan
(from whose waters many of the mussels were harvested), along with prison
sentences and periods of supervised release or probation for these
individuals.
The $1 million in restitution from Tennessee Shell will be paid to the
National Fish and Wildlife Foundation to establish the Freshwater Mussel
Conservation Fund for mussel research and recovery. "This is an important
event in the annals of wildlife conservation history because it ultimately
returns a significant amount of money to wildlife agencies to work on the
task of protecting and restoring the exploited species," said the
Foundation's Director of Conservation Programs, Whitney Tilt. The Foundation
is an organization established by Congress to assist the Fish and Wildlife
Service and others in raising funds for wildlife conservation.
Special agents of the Fish and Wildlife Service worked with state officers
in Tennessee, Kentucky, West Virginia, Ohio, Michigan, Alabama and Louisiana,
to follow the trail of evidence from the Ohio, Muskingum, Green and Grand
rivers to the company's headquarters in Camden, Tennessee, and from there
through West Coast ports to Japan. Mr. Hall expressed particular gratitude to
the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency and the Kentucky Department of Fish
and Wildlife Resources for their assistance in making this case. "This case
might never have come to prosecution without their help," he said.
According to Fish and Wildlife Service Special Agent David Cartwright,
who led the investigation, tracking the criminals' paper trail to gather
evidence was an exhausting, time-consuming process.
"Making the case involved analyzing 200,000 documents seized from
Tennessee Shell Company, reviewing records, conducting interviews, and
developing witnesses. Through this effort, we were successful in gathering
overwhelming evidence against Tennessee Shell Company," said Cartwright.
Cartwright said the stolen shells were shipped to Tennessee Shell, where
they were mixed with shells from legal sources, loaded into sacks, placed in
22-ton freight containers and exported to Japan by way of West Coast ports,
including Los Angeles. Records recovered during the investigation revealed a
$50 million annual domestic business for shell companies in the United States
and a $5 billion annual foreign trade to meet the demands for pearls, fine
jewelry and other products.
Director Myers pointed out that shelling can be and is done legally,
including by Tennessee Shell Company, and provides jobs and livelihoods for
about 10,000 people, primarily in the Mississippi River Basin.
Freshwater mussels are one of the most endangered families of wildlife in
America. While found on every continent except Antarctica, freshwater
mussels are most diverse in the Mississippi and Ohio River drainages of the
United States. Of the approximately 300 known species of mussels, 30 are
extinct and another 70 are listed as threatened or endangered. An estimated
70 percent of the nation's mussels are at risk from a variety of threats,
reflecting an unparallel level of collapse of a family of wildlife. Human-
induced habitat loss is considered the major reason for the collapse.
State conservation agencies and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service biologists
became alarmed at the loss of the mussel resources from poaching in recent
years and requested that special agents of the Service's Division of Law
Enforcement get involved to help them stem the interstate and international
illegal trade.
Due to their larger size and greater thickness, shells of mussels from the
South and Midwest are in great demand in the Orient. Most of the shells end
up in Japan, where shell pieces are rounded into beads and implanted into
live oysters. The bead is an irritant to the oyster and, in defense, the
oyster secretes "nacre," a pearly substance, around the bead. After 2-3
years, a cultured freshwater pearl is formed. The larger the original bead,
the larger the resultant pearl.
In the United States, the industry is primarily based along the
Mississippi River drainage, with the largest companies predominantly located
in Tennessee.
The joint federal and state investigations involved U.S. Fish and
Wildlife Service special agents east of the Mississippi River; state wildlife
officers from Tennessee, Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio, West Virginia, Alabama and
Louisiana; and assistant United States Attorneys from Tennessee, Michigan and
Illinois. Supervisory Assistant U.S. Attorney Len Register, United States
Attorney's Office, Western District of Tennessee, Eastern Division, Jackson,
led the prosecution. Special agents Carl Wilson (Grand Rapids, Michigan) and
Andy Pierce (Columbus, Ohio) supported the investigation.
NOTE TO THE PUBLIC: Recent studies indicate that more than $100 billion
per year is generated in the United States economy directly from activities
related to our public fish and wildlife resources. Unfortunately, analysis
of world wide criminal activities conducted by Interpol and published in the
November 1994 Time Magazine story "Animal Genocide, Mob Style" also reveals
that the international illegal trade in wildlife trafficking is the second
largest form of black-market commerce in the world, behind drugs and ahead of
illegal arms. The public can help stop wildlife law violations by reporting
suspicious activities to State or Federal wildlife officers and by refusing
to purchase products made from protected wildlife.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is the principal federal agency
responsible for conserving, protecting, and enhancing fish and wildlife and
their habitats for the continuing benefit of the American people. The
Service's 94 million acres include 514 national wildlife refuges, 78
ecological services field stations, 65 national fish hatcheries, 50 wildlife
coordination areas, and 38 wetland management districts with waterfowl
production areas.
The agency enforces Federal wildlife laws, manages migratory bird
populations, restores nationally significant fisheries, conserves and restores
wildlife habitat such as wetlands, administers the Endangered Species Act,
and helps foreign governments with their conservation efforts. It also
oversees the Federal Aid program that distributes Federal excise taxes on
fishing and hunting equipment to state wildlife agencies. This program is a
cornerstone of the Nation's wildlife management efforts, funding fish and
wildlife restoration, boating access, hunter education, shooting ranges, and
related projects across America.
CONTACT:
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service:
Mitch Snow, 202/208-5634 (Washington, DC)
Diana Hawkins, 404/679-7293 (TN, KY)
Joan Guilfoyle, 612/619-7695 (MI, OH)
or
U.S. Attorney's Office:
Walter Rein, 901/544-4231
or
Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency:
Norman Bates, 615/781-6538
or
Kentucky Dept. of Fish & Wildlife Resources:
Norm Minch, 502/564-7109, Ext. 434
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