- Environment
- News
What is seafood fraud? Dangerous—and running rampant, report finds
In a test of fish bought in 24 states and the District of Columbia, Oceana found consumers weren't getting what they paid for.
If you order a filet of snapper at a restaurant, you probably expect to be served snapper. But a new report suggests there's a strong chance you'll be getting something else.
They found that 20 percent of the 449 fish they tested were incorrectly labeled. Orders of sea bass were often replaced by giant perch, Alaskan halibut by Greenland turbot, and Florida snapper by lavender jobfish, to name a few.
Oceana made headlines in 2016 by publishing a report finding massive seafood fraud on a global scale. Since then, NOAA created the Seafood Import Monitoring Program (SIMP), to track 13 species deemed at high risk of being fraudulently sold or sourced illegally.
None of the 13 SIMP monitored species were sampled.
“We wanted to