How 'fake seafood' has become a big business and how to make sure you're eating the real deal and not faux fish

Seafood fraud has become a growing problem in US, and companies are sneaking faux fish ingredients in foods like crab, lobster, and salmon. 

International fishing companies are committing massive fraud by sneaking the cheap substitutes into seafood rather than serving suppliers and consumers the real deal.

'Seafood fraud is perhaps one of the most fraudulent items that consumers are coming into contact with regularly,' Max Valentine, campaign director of Oceana, told Business Insider.

Things like seafood cost and fishing tactics play roles in the fraud, and studies have shown that 84 percent of seafood eaten in the US is imported.

Despite the increase in the commonality of seafood fraud, there are still ways in which consumers, chefs, and other experts can tell when some of it is real.

Seafood fraud caught the attention of the nonprofit organization Oceana years ago and they conducted one of the its largest investigations into the practice from 2010 to 2012.

Oceana collected over 1,200 seafood samples from 674 retail outlets in 21 states.

Based on the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) guidelines, 33 percent of the samples were determined to be mislabeled.

Oceana also concluded in a 2012 seafood fraud report that 56 of the 142 samples they took from 81 retail outlets in New York were mislabeled and more than half the locations in the state have sold mislabeled fish.  

Mislabeling in seafood refers to individuals or companies selling one species of fish, crustacean, or shellfish as another species.

An example of this fraud, according to Business Insider, was if a restaurant takes a $3 tilapia and passes it off as a $17 red snapper.

Recent studies via Oceana now show that seafood may be mislabeled between 25 to 75 percent of the time on fish like red snapper, wild salmon, and Atlantic cod.

'Consumers are getting ripped off,' Oceana Vice President Beth Lowell told CNN in 2019.

'We’ve been testing seafood for nine years now, and every time we do a study, we think, "maybe we will no longer see a problem," but we keep finding it, and we know it’s having an impact on our oceans.'

Valentine, who's also a seafood fraud expert, discussed the decrease in fish population in places like Chesapeake Bay - a body of water where fishermen can catch Maryland Blue Crabs.

'Population levels have been declining because of environmental water quality issues, especially in Chesapeake Bay,' said Valentine.

She added that the Maryland Blue Crabs are now being sold for 'astronomical prices,' and only a limited supply exists.

This was likely one of the reasons why 40 percent of Maryland Blue crab cakes in Washington DC and Maryland were mislabeled in 2015.

'It would turn out to be swimming crab from Southeast Asia, and it's incredibly cheaper,' Valentine told Business Insider.

The tuna fish industry has also been a cause for concern, one reason being the common mislabeling of bluefin tuna.

'The tuna fishery is especially difficult to manage because tuna are migratory in nature, and as a result, the vessels targeting tuna are usually fishing across multiple jurisdictions,' Peter Hammartstedt, Director of Campaigns, Sea Shepherd, told Business Insider.

Another issue is 'fake tuna,' which Business Insider says includes individuals attempting to sell Escolar - a non-expensive fish that may contain high levels of mercury.

'If you can be successful at that fraud, the returns are huge,' said Valentine. 

Other than retail outlets, suppliers and restaurant chains have tarnished their reputations in the past due to their fraudulent seafood decisions. 

Law enforcement busted a Virginia seafood supplier for labeling 400,000 pounds of imported lump crab as a US product.

Michael Casey of Casey’s Seafood pleaded guilty to falsely labeling the crab meat in 2019 and revealed that he was aware of the fraudulent activity as early as 2010.

The imported crab meat came from Indonesia, China, Thailand, Vietnam, and Central and South America.  

Casey was sentenced to nearly four years in prison later that year, and Casey’s Seafood, Inc is now permanently closed.

The Frankie & Benny's restaurant chain also found itself in hot water in 2014 after its superiors admitted to using only 45 percent real crab in its crab bruschetta, with the rest being reconstituted fish paste.

The restaurant chain is still running, but it removed the crab bruschetta and received the lowest rating in its sustainability of seafood product assessment in 2015.

Thankfully, there are ways in which one can tell the difference between real and fake seafood.

Business Insider handed Valentine a can of lump crab to use so that she could explain some ways on how to determine what fish is real or fake.

'What's really great here is that the company has put a lot of information on the back of the package,' said Valentine.

The container indicated that the lump crab was 'wild caught' and it was a 'Blue Swimming Crab' from Indonesia.

Any crab can or container that doesn't include this concise information is a red flag, and that is when it's best for consumers to purchase a Maryland Blue Crab 'whole and alive' from April until December.

Valentine also advised consumers to remember that if a package in a supermarket is marked 'Bluefin Crab,' it's likely fraudulent.

The seafood fraud expert also explained how to tell the difference between real and fake salmon - wild-caught and farm-raised.

'Salmon filets that are raised in a farm tend to be a little lighter pink in color rather than that deep vibrant red,' said Valentine.

'Your farm-raised salmon filets are going to have more of that marbling... Be a bit meatier, bigger, and thicker because they're not having to work as hard surviving in the ocean versus surviving in pens.'

Other ways to make sure that individuals buy real shellfish is to get them whole, get the items fresh, and cut them up themselves.

New York chef Preston Clark advised consumers to love lobster and to make sure they purchase it alive.