Scammers Reel in $90,000 of Chesapeake Catfish in Elaborate Hoax

A catfishing scheme involving actual catfish is now under investigation on Tilghman Island, after scammers walked away with nearly $100,000 worth of local seafood, according to reporting by the Baltimore Banner.

Katie Olson, account manager at Tilghman Island Seafood, told the Banner she’s always cautious with large orders. She checks phone numbers, websites, and names before approving a sale. 

When a request came last year for 20,000 pounds of blue catfish fillets, worth about $90,000, everything appeared legitimate. The emails appeared to come from McCain Foods, and the name on the paperwork matched that of a company executive.  Only later did she learn the executive had recently retired.  

Food-industry fraud is hardly rare. Two months before the catfish scheme, a London cheese shop revealed it had been tricked into shipping away nearly $400,000 in rare cheddar to scammers posing as a French company. A recent report from the World Trade Organization estimated global food-fraud losses at $30 to $50 billion annually.

Blue catfish have been in the Chesapeake Bay since 1974, when Virginia wildlife officials introduced them to boost sport fishing.  The invasive species has since exploded across the watershed, devouring native fish and crabs and making up as much as 70 percent of the biomass in some tributaries. Maryland officials hope a regional market for the fish can help curb their spread.

Tilghman Island Seafood owner Nick Hargrove has tried to build such a market. His processing operation is one of only two on the Eastern Shore and, he believes, the biggest in Maryland. “I thought we could help the cause,” he said, but the seafood black market makes the work harder.

The fraudulent order was supposed to be delivered to a warehouse district in the Bronx, near the Fulton Fish Market.  But when the truck arrived, the driver encountered an unexpected scene: FBI agents in the street conducting a raid. It’s unclear which warehouse was the target. The FBI declined to comment, citing policy that neither confirms nor denies investigations.

According to a Talbot County sheriff’s report, agents redirected the Chesapeake catfish to cold storage. The purported buyer later had the shipment moved to another nearby warehouse.  When Olson attempted to collect payment, the phone numbers went dead, and emails stopped.  Tilghman Island Seafood had been swindled.

The case is still under investigation by the Sheriff’s Office and surfaced publicly because of an insurance lawsuit the company filed to recover its losses.  The case is pending in federal court in Baltimore.

Hargrove doubts the scammers will ever be caught. He suspects the catfish was packed into a container and shipped overseas. It was a major hit to his business, but he doesn’t expect federal agents to spend much time on the case. “I don’t know what their priorities are,” he told the Banner, “but I’m sure it’s a small fish.”