Rainforest Seafoods, it's a Caribbean corporation operating out of Jamaica - but with a branch here in Belize.
But, for the past week, the company has been under scrutiny. That's because multiple, reliable reports to 7News over the past 5 days confirm that the company is being investigated for attempting to ship out more than 3,000 pounds of conch that did not meet the minimum 3 ounce weight requirement. Our reports say that in a week-long pull down of the container which was bound for export - Fisheries officers found over 20 thousand conch that did not meet that weight requirement.
Now, if these figures are accurate, at a minimum of 50 dollars per conch, the company could be facing a fine of over a million dollars. And, the public will say, if it was an ordinary small fisherman - he would have already been dragged before the magistrate.
So what will happen with Rainforest Seafoods? Well the CEO in the Ministry of the Blue Economy told us today, quote, "the matter is under investigation and will go through the legal process with advice from the DPP's office. Other than that we cannot disclose any more information at this moment...the Fisheries Department is very busy doing it's due diligence. As soon as more concrete information is available our Ministry will be issuing a press release."
We also tried to contact the company's general manager and its attorney - who told us he will "ascertain the facts and respond...tomorrow."
Persons with knowledge of the situation have told us that the conch did meet the weight requirement when it was caught, but when they were "blast frozen" for export there was shrinkage. We'll keep following the story.
