Category: Department of Justice
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Chipotle to Pay $25 Million for Foodborne Illness Outbreaks
The Department of Justice (DOJ) has announced that Chipotle Mexican Grill Inc. will pay $25 million and enter a deferred prosecution agreement to resolve criminal charges related to foodborne illness outbreaks that occurred between 2015 and 2018. The deferred prosecution agreement will require Chipotle to comply with an improved food safety program for three years…
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Companies and Owners Plead Guilty to Seafood Fraud
The U.S. Department of Justice has announced that Roy Tuccillo, Sr., his son Roy Tuccillo, Jr., and their food processing and distribution companies, Anchor Frozen Foods Inc. and Advanced Frozen Foods Inc., have pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit wire fraud. The companies reportedly imported 113,000 pounds of squid and sold it as octopus to…
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DOJ Announces Guilty Plea in E. Coli Prosecution
The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) has announced that Memet Beqiri had pleaded guilty to “a charge related to his meat processing business’s falsification of numerous E. coli test results,” according to a press release. Beqiri, owner and general manager of New England Meat Packing LLC, allegedly prepared and submitted falsified documents indicating that the…
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DOJ Announces Guilty Plea in Mislabeled Crabmeat Case
The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) has announced that Phillip Carawan pleaded guilty to falsely labeling crabmeat worth $4 million as a product of the United States despite being imported. Carawan and his company apparently could not meet customer demand and imported foreign crabmeat to cover orders for U.S.-produced crabmeat. “Seafood mislabeling is consumer fraud…
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Seafood Processer Guilty on Falsely Labeling “Product of USA” Crab Meat
The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) has announced that Michael Casey, vice president of Casey’s Seafood Inc., has pleaded guilty to charges of falsely labeling almost 400,000 pounds of crab meat as derived from Atlantic blue crab in the United States despite importing the meat from a number of countries, including Indonesia, China, Thailand and…
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Bumble Bee Pleads Guilty to Felony in Price-Fixing Conspiracy
Bumble Bee Foods, LLC has agreed to plead guilty to one felony count for its role in a conspiracy to fix prices of shelf-stable tuna and will pay a minimum $25 million fine. U.S. v. Bumble Bee Foods LLC, No. 17-CR-249 (N.D. Cal. May 8, 2017). According to the U.S. Department of Justice, Bumble Bee…
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SEC, DOJ End Hampton Creek Investigations
The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Department of Justice (DOJ) have reportedly ended their investigations into Hampton Creek’s alleged sales-inflation buyback operation, in which employees purchased jars of the company’s Just Mayo product then sold the jars back to the company. Bloomberg initially reported that the company had expensed $1.4 million for “Inventory…