Jeffrey Olsen, 52, a Seattle-area seafood broker, “bought 2,500 pounds of geoduck from various Alaska divers … mixed together in crates for shipping,” according to a local TV station (see story here).
“A day later, before the clams were exported, a diver notified Alaska state officials he had mistakenly harvested his geoduck from an area that was not approved for harvest and was not tested for toxins that can cause paralytic shellfish poisoning,” according to the story.
In other words, not safe to eat.
Olsen, whose business is registered in Alaska (here), told those officials he would destroy the geoduck. Instead, he falsified export documents and shipped them to Hong Kong for human consumption.
He got caught, was fined $25,000 ($10 a pound), and was sentenced to 90 days in prison followed by 3 years of supervised release (see sentencing document here). Probably ruined his business, too. I wouldn’t buy seafood from him, would you?
Photo: This is obviously a fake photo; real prison bars aren’t this shiny and don’t have rubber feet, but after searching for an image for this article, it was either that or a box of geoducks.