Polish shipper sentenced to 30 months in jail for cavier smuggling
Mariusz Chomicz, president of a Polish company, was sentenced by a U.S. court on May 21 to 30 months in prison for his involvement in a cavier smuggling ring.
Chomicz, 29, paid couriers to smuggle suitcases filed with cavier on flights to Miami. The cavier was then sold to a Miami-based cavier company through the use of a forged U.S. Fish and Wildlife import license and false invoices using the name BMT Trading. “No such company ever existed and the smugglers sales price was well below market value,” court papers said.
U.S. Justice Department officials said 1,539 kilograms of cavier were smuggled through this network. Chomicz was directly responsible for 619 kilograms of smuggled cavier worth about $1.8 million.
“Recent prosecutions have shown that the cavier trade is plagued by criminal activity which will result in the inevitable collapse of sturgeon populations absent vigorous enforcement,” said Tom Sansonetti, assistant attorney general for the Justice Department’s Environmental and Natural Resources Division, in a statement.
On April 1, 1998, the protection for sturgeon was greatly enhanced by its listing on the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES), of which the United States is a signatory.