Montauk

Caterers in Washington tweeted a photo of sashimi appetizers served to 700 guests attending the governor's inaugural ball last year. They were told the tuna was from Montauk.

But it was an illusion. It was winter and no yellowfin had been landed in the New York town.

An Associated Press investigation traced the supply chain of national distributor Sea To Table to other parts of the world, where fishermen described working under slave-like conditions with low regard for marine life.

In a global seafood industry plagued by deceit, conscientious consumers will pay top dollar for what they believe is local, sustainably caught seafood. But even in this fast-growing niche market, companies can hide behind murky dealings, making it difficult to know the story behind any given fish.

Sea To Table said that by working directly with 60 docks along U.S. coasts, it could guarantee the fish was wild, domestic and traceable. The New York-based company quickly rose in the sustainable seafood movement. While it told investors it had $13 million in sales last year, it expected growth to $70 million by 2020. The distributor earned endorsement from the Monterey Bay Aquarium and garnered media attention from Bon Appetit, Forbes and many more. Its clientele included celebrity chef Rick Bayless, Roy's seafood restaurants, universities and home delivery meal kits such as HelloFresh.

As part of their investigation, reporters staked out America's largest fish market, followed trucks and interviewed fishermen who worked on three continents. During a bone-chilling week, they set up a time-lapse camera at Montauk harbor that showed no tuna boats docking. The AP also had a chef order $500 worth of fish sent "directly from the landing dock to your kitchen," but the boat listed on the receipt hadn't been there in at least two years.

Preliminary DNA tests suggested the fish likely came from the Indian Ocean or the Western Central Pacific. Using genetic markers to determine origins is still an emerging science, but experts say the research will eventually be used to help fight illegal activity in the industry.

Some of Sea To Table's partner docks on both coasts, it turned out, were not docks at all. They were wholesalers or markets, flooded with imports.

The distributor also offered species that were farmed, out of season or illegal to catch.

"It's sad to me that this is what's going on," said chef Bayless, who hosts a PBS series. He had worked with Sea To Table because he liked being tied to fishermen — and the "wonderful stories" about their catch. "This throws quite a wrench in all of that."

Among Sea To Table's Capital Region restaurant customers is Yono's/dp: An American Brasserie in Albany. Responding to the AP report, Dominick Purnomo — who owns and runs the restaurants with his parents, Donna and Yono Purnomo, who founded Yono's in 1986 — said, "While we are saddened to hear about these allegations against Sea to Table's business practices, we have been pleased with the superior quality of product and customer service that they have been providing us for the last six years. We will continue to closely monitor the situation and will continue to use them as one of our many options for seafood sourcing."

Another Capital Region customer is Peck's Arcade in Troy. Its executive chef, Nick Ruscitto said, "We've ordered from the company around twice a month for the past few years. It's disheartening to hear this news, because we are deeply invested in the sourcing for all of our food served at Peck's Arcade."

Sea To Table owner Sean Dimin stressed that his suppliers are prohibited from sending imports to customers; he said violators would be terminated. "We take this extremely seriously," he said.

Dimin also said he communicated clearly with chefs that some fish labeled as freshly landed at one port were actually caught and trucked in from other states. But customers denied this, and federal officials described it as mislabeling.

The AP focused on tuna because the distributor's supplier in Montauk, the Bob Gosman Co., was offering chefs yellowfin tuna all year round, even when federal officials said there were no landings in the entire state. Almost nightly, Gosman's trucks drove three hours to reach the New Fulton Fish Market, where they picked up boxes of fish bearing shipping labels from all over the world.

Some of Gosman's supply came from Land, Ice and Fish, in Trinidad and Tobago. The AP interviewed and reviewed complaints from more than a dozen fishermen who said they earned $1.50 a day, working 22 hours at a time, on boats that brought yellowfin to Land, Ice and Fish's compound. They described finning sharks and occasionally cutting off whale and dolphin heads.