Houston Man at Center of Texas’ Largest Illegal Seafood Network
Texas Parks & Wildlife Game Wardens have issued over 200 Class C misdemeanors after discovering that a Houston restaurateur and his associates have been running a massive illegal seafood funneling network.
KHOU reports 59-year-old Bruce Molzan is accused of selling highly regulated and protected game such as red snapper, tuna, amberjack, grouper, and red drum caught illegally by about a dozen unlicensed commercial fishermen.
The scam's been running since at least 2013. Investigators caught on to it about two years ago, and there was a break in the case a year ago when the Coast Guard stopped a fishing boat off the coast near Freeport and found 1,900 pounds worth of red snapper.
Col. Craig Hunter, TPWD law enforcement director told Texas Parks and Wildlife game, “Not only did these unscrupulous actors violate recreational fishing regulations at an extreme level for personal profit, but they also circumvented restrictions and rules governing the possession, safe handling and sale of commercial aquatic products intended for human consumption. That is not something we in law enforcement will tolerate and we are confident these individuals will be prosecuted to the fullest extent the law allows.”