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Former BASE auction employees implicate owners in “Codfather” scandal
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Two former employees of the Buyers and Sellers Exchange (BASE) in New Bedford, Massachusetts, U.S.A. have alleged that the owners – brothers Raymond and Richard Canastra – were aware of and involved in falsifying quotas performed by the “Codfather” Carlos Rafael.
Rafael pleaded guilty in 2017 to falsifying fish quotas, tax evasion, and conspiracy in the wake of allegations he was connected to a criminal fishing scheme involving the evasion of fishing quotas and the smuggling of profits to Portugal. Following the criminal case, a civil case brought by NOAA ensued, which Rafael settled in August 2019.
NEW BEDFORD Two former employees of Buyers and Sellers Exchange (BASE) are alleging owners and brothers Raymond and Richard Canastra were aware of and involved in Carlos Rafael s falsifying of fish quotas, according to two affidavits filed last week as part of an ongoing lawsuit.
In their written statements, signed in September 2020 under the penalties of perjury, former BASE employees Peter Medeiros and Nelson Couto allege Raymond Canastra and Rafael instructed them to destroy and falsify paperwork detailing the species and quantity of fish caught an important record that must be submitted weekly to the federal government.
Medeiros, who said he worked at BASE from 2006 to 2018 as general manager overseeing unloading of vessels, wrote the Canastra brothers instructed him to handle the unloading of Rafael s groundfish boats differently from all other groundfish boats starting in 2010.