Federal and state law enforcement officers arrested an Apalachicola, Florida, fisherman at a local seafood wholesaler midday on Thursday, July 24.

It was the first public move toward concluding a two-year undercover investigation aimed at cracking a multi-state conspiracy to sell red drum, spotted seatrout and other protected Florida marine fish, said Allan Coker, special agent with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) fisheries service.

NOAA/FWC Surveillance photo from the bust.

James Nations, Jr., was peaceably taken into custody and transported to a U.S. Marshalls office in Tallahassee by NOAA agent Elizabeth Slavin and Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC) officer Charlie Chafin. Nations is one of seven individuals named in a 57-count indictment released yesterday by a U.S. District Court in Albany, Georgia.

The state FWC and federal NOAA agencies cooperated in the investigation, said Coker, but the U.S. attorney is pursuing federal charges, as most of the alleged violations involve the Lacey Act, which prohibits interstate shipment of fish or wildlife taken in violation of state law. Each Lacey Act violation, a felony, carries a possible 5-year prison term and $250,000 fine.

According to the indictment, Nations and four other Florida fishers--some licensed, some not--violated numerous Florida fisheries laws while supplying product to Road Runner Seafood, Inc., in Colquitt, Georgia.

Executing criminal search warrants issued in Georgia and Florida, investigators documented dozens of shipments as large as 1,671 pounds, with a total dollar amount exceeding $200,000. Species included speckled trout; out-of-season red snapper, gag grouper and red grouper; and--perhaps most insidiously--red drum, a hugely popular gamefish protected from sale by Florida law since 1989.

"It's a big seafood dealer, with 18-wheelers and everything, which had been flying under the radar," Coker said. "They had no federal permits; until we started receiving information, we didn't know of them."

Working quietly over a period of two years, Coker and FWC investigator Chafin worked to unravel the full extent of the alleged violations.

"If they've had, say, 500 pounds of red drum in state waters, and never left Florida, it would've been a state charge," Coker said. "But since they took fish and went across the state line, it's a federal case."

Road Runner owners James L. Stovall and Guy S. Stovall, according to the indictment, knowingly purchased from the five named Florida fishers on numerous occasions since 2004. In several instances, evidence shows the two Stovall brothers falsified Marine Fisheries Trip Tickets, reporting to Florida state officials the purchase of "grunt," for instance, where grouper, snapper or drum may have been involved. (Oddly enough, Road Runner also allegedly bought, mislabeled, and sold Vietnamese catfish as "grouper.")

Charged with supplying ill-gotten Florida saltwater fish are Eric Donald Woods of Keaton Beach; Jeffery Cannon of Panacea; James N. Nations, Jr., of Apalachicola; Gary D. Brown of Medart; and Floyd Robbie Jenkins of Perry. Two of the men, Brown and Jenkins, owned and operated independent retail and wholesale seafood businesses in Florida. (Water Street Seafood, the Apalachicola market where Nations was arrested Thursday, has not been implicated.)

U.S. District Attorney Maxwell Wood said the indictments are only accusations, and the accused are presumed innocent until proven guilty at trial.

According to Coker, who spoke with Florida Sportsman magazine soon after the arrest on Thursday, the men charged are obligated to appear in U.S. District court in Albany, Georgia, on August 13 to enter a plea.

"This is one of the most far-reaching undercover operations on the northern Gulf Coast during the past 20 years," said Capt. Leroy Alderson, FWC regional investigations supervisor.

"It started here--one of our officers, Charlie Chafin, had information on a particular boat harvesting grouper and snapper in closed season," Alderson said. "He was able to do surveillance on them, and nabbed them. In the process, we got the first hints of an out-of-state dealership--and that's when we brought in our federal partners."

Coker, one of about 140 NOAA plain-clothes special agents nationwide, obtained warrants to seize computers, paperwork--even trash cans.

As it turned out, said Alderson, "Road Runner kept excellent documentation of their business deals. Fishermen from Florida would bring fish to them--for example red snapper during the closed season--and they'd fill out Trip Ticket, indicating the fish ID, pounds, where it came from; they'd falsify it and write a check to the fisherman, but on another sheet of paper they'd list what the fish really was. It was handed to us on a platter, as far as documentation goes."

"It's a small part of the commercial industry doing illegal operations, very close knit," said Alderson. "To obtain information from that group is nearly impossible. We do have an in now, and you're going to see more results."

Chafin, a 30-year veteran of Florida fish and wildlife law enforcement, summed things up by saying, "This case has more far-reaching benefits for the resource than anything I've worked on in my career."

--Jeff Weakley, Editor