Leader of Ring to Smuggle Prized Caviar Pleads Guilty

WASHINGTON —  Gourmets beware: That exotic smoky gray delicacy that you recently spread on a “blini” pancake--perhaps with a dab of sour cream--may have been contraband.

Viktor Tsimbal, a Russian who was the president and owner of the Miami-based Beluga Caviar Inc., pleaded guilty Monday to orchestrating a ring that smuggled large quantities of caviar--more than Russia’s entire annual worldwide export quota--to the United States.

Smugglers were paid $500 to carry luggage filled with 50 to 75 one-pound tins of black-market caviar from Poland to U.S. airports, according to papers filed in U.S. District Court.

Epicureans pay about $100 an ounce to nibble beluga roe--praised for its sublimely smooth, buttery taste--from Caspian Sea sturgeon. But the fish species is also paying a high price for those taste treats, biologists say.

Caspian sturgeon are protected under an international treaty that strictly limits imports and exports of caviar. But beluga caviar from Caspian Sea sturgeon is in such peril that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has proposed adding it to the endangered species list. That would cut off all imports.

“Caspian Sea sturgeon may have been around since the age of dinosaurs, but the appetite of smugglers for profit has the potential to extinguish them from the earth,” said Tom Sansonetti, assistant attorney general of the Justice Department’s environment and natural resources division.

Beginning in late 1998, federal agents started catching couriers with illegal shipments of un-refrigerated caviar in U.S. airports, according to a Justice Department lawyer working on the case. The smugglers had falsely labeled the tins of caviar as Atlantic lumpfish, which is not a protected species, so couriers could declare the fish eggs when coming through customs. Couriers were apprehended in early 2000 in Miami International Airport carrying mislabeled caviar.

The couriers were arrested and put in jail, but they refused to lead authorities to their contacts in the United States.

Agents became suspicious when far too much beluga caviar was being sold in the United States, given shipping and customs documents, according to the attorney.

Using the code name Operation Southern Comfort, Fish and Wildlife Service agents sent an undercover “source” to the Beluga Caviar company in Miami in May 2000, where he was offered the caviar at less than market price in tins labeled Atlantic lumpfish. DNA analysis done by the Fish and Wildlife Service confirmed that the tins held high-quality caviar.

Two weeks later, agents went to the company with a search warrant and confiscated business records along with 895 tins of sturgeon caviar worth about $550,000, according to the Justice Department.

The haul represented only a small portion of Tsimbal’s business, according to court documents. In 1999 alone, Tsimbal imported about 22,700 pounds of caviar in shipments in which he misidentified the roe as lumpfish or other fish eggs. Of this total, nearly six tons was beluga caviar, most of it illegal and enough to surpass the entire Russian export quota for the year.

Although the Justice Department believes Tsimbal--who ran a parallel business that legally imported caviar--was one of the biggest players in the caviar black market, he was not alone, officials said.

“If you had Russian black caviar in those two years there’s a better than even chance you were purchasing and consuming smuggled caviar,” the Justice Department attorney said.

U.S. officials said the black market trade of Russian caviar exploded after the fall of the Soviet Union, which was much better at controlling poaching than its four former republics with Caspian Sea coastlines.

Sturgeon, which can live up to 100 years, are killed to extract the roe, which is salted to make caviar. Female sturgeon often do not reach egg-bearing age until they are 20 years old.

Poaching of sturgeon for the caviar black market has put the fish in peril, biologists say.

“There is considerable evidence that there is very little native spawning of the fish; that makes it very vulnerable,” said Kenneth Stansell, assistant director for international affairs of the Fish and Wildlife Service.

Although some sturgeon are reproducing in a Caspian region hatchery, it is not enough to replenish wild stock.

Tsimbal, 41, pleaded guilty to conspiracy, smuggling and money laundering charges.

The maximum term for each of the four counts of conspiracy and smuggling is five years, while the maximum sentence for money laundering is 10 years.

He forfeited the $36,000 in his possession when he was arrested at Miami International Airport and could face a fine of up to $1 million.