Department of Commerce
National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration
NOAA Fisheries Service
- Office for Law Enforcement

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
October 25, 2006

NOAA ENFORCEMENT AGENTS ARREST SEAFOOD DEALER FOR LACEY ACT VIOLATIONS AND FORGING FEDERAL DOCUMENTS 

On September 26, 2006 , NOAA Enforcement agents arrested Harold Holmen in Seattle, Wash., following a federal indictment. Holmen was charged with shipping salmon illegally to the Republic of Georgia and Israel, and forging government export documents. 

The arrest follows a 19-month investigation that was initiated when an inspector for the NOAA Fisheries Seafood Inspection program noticed discrepancies on export documents and brought them to the attention of OLE special agents. The inspector discovered what he thought to be a forged U.S. Dept of Commerce Export Health Certificate for a shipment of chum salmon that was exported to the Republic of Georgia.

The investigation, initiated in February 2005, discovered that Holmen had forged U.S. Dept of Commerce Export Health Certificates to ship two containers of chum salmon valued at $47,562 to Israel in violation of Israeli law. It was also confirmed that a forged export certificate was used to illegally ship another container of chum salmon, valued at $28,464 to the Republic of Georgia . The salmon were legally caught off the coast of Washington.

A federal search warrant served in June 2006 against Holmen's business in Seattle revealed files that determined the documents were forged. According to OLE special agents, Holmen confessed to creating the forged government documents to circumvent the seafood import laws of Israel and the Republic of Georgia.

A trial is scheduled for December 4, 2006 , at the Western Washington U.S. District Courthouse in Seattle.

In 2007 the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, an agency of the U.S. Commerce Department, celebrates 200 years of science and service to the nation.  From the establishment of the Survey of the Coast in 1807 by Thomas Jefferson to the formation of the Weather Bureau and the Bureau of Commercial Fisheries in the 1870s, much of America 's scientific heritage is rooted in NOAA.

NOAA is dedicated to enhancing economic security and national safety through the prediction and research of weather and climate-related events and information service delivery for transportation, and by providing environmental stewardship of our nation's coastal and marine resources. Through the emerging Global Earth Observation System of Systems (GEOSS), NOAA is working with its federal partners, more than 60 countries and the European Commission to develop a global monitoring network that is as integrated as the planet it observes, predicts and protects.

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