The Criminal Court number 3 of Arrecife has sentenced the owner of the Los Alisios Fishmonger in San Bartolomé and an employee to three and a half years and two years and nine months in prison, respectively, for selling a grouper with ciguatera poisoning 14 people. The convicted persons must also compensate those affected with compensation ranging from 910 to 10,401 euros, totaling more than 50,000.
The court considers that Saúl Levi Hernández and Ismael Hernández are guilty of a crime against public health in its form of food fraud in conjunction with three crimes and eleven misdemeanors of injury. All those affected had to go to the emergency room, some of them needing medical treatment for up to three months and most of them having sequelae in the form of paresthesia.
The events took place between December 3 and 7, 2013 when, according to the judgment, the defendants sold pieces of a grouper weighing more than 29 kilos "without having previously carried out the control procedures established for the first sale of fish products by the State Maritime Fisheries Law and the Canary Islands Fisheries Law". As a result of the "non-compliance" with these protocols, "it was not detected that the grouper was infected with ciguatoxin", resulting in its buyers being "infected with ciguatera".
The two defendants, who also have a history of drug trafficking, have also been fined. For Saúl Levi Hernández, the Criminal Court number 3 of Arrecife has set a fine of 2,690 euros and for Ismael Hernández of 1,920.
"It was bigger than the six-year-old child"
During the trial, the defendants denied having sold a grouper specimen larger than 29 kilos, which is the limit set for the control of ciguatoxin, "neither fished by themselves, nor acquired from a third party" also rejecting that "no grouper marketed by them did not pass the detection controls". To this end, they provided purchase documents by Saúl Levi Hernández of a four-kilo grouper on December 2 and another of 12 on the 5th. However, the court accepts the testimony of some of those affected, who "got to see the size of the grouper" and who stated that they had never seen such a large specimen. One of them, who went to the fishmonger with her son, even stated that the fishmonger told her "as a joke" that the fish "was bigger than the child, who at that time could weigh 20 kilos at six years old".
When the Public Health Inspectorate appeared at the fishmonger's on December 9, they found no trace of the grouper, but according to the ruling, two of the injured parties had warned the defendants that "they had been contaminated" an hour before, so the court considers that "they had time to get rid of the evidence and devise a version of the facts"
"Never in the Canary Islands, nor in the entire Macaronesia, has there been a case of a 12-kilo grouper, much less one of four, that has ciguatoxin", said the head of the Public Health Section of the Lanzarote Health Area during the oral hearing, who stated his "almost total certainty" that the grouper that was sold to those affected did not correspond to the groupers that appeared on the two invoices provided by the fishmonger.
The judge considers that "there is no basis to doubt the testimonies of the direct witnesses" and "shares the arguments of the experts" also pointing out her "conviction" that the grouper that was sold in the Los Alisios fishmonger in San Bartolomé "came from a private fishing trip from the boat of the defendant Saúl Levi Hernández".
"Malpractice" in the San Ginés Fishermen's Association
A public health inspection technician, who also testified at the trial, also stated that, until this case occurred, "problems" had been recorded in the San Ginés Fishermen's Association, "because they made the labels without really controlling what fish it is".
According to her, the box, in addition to the label, must be accompanied by an invoice made by the market itself, which describes the product that has passed through that process, which is called First Sale and that for each box there must necessarily be a label. However, this system "was not being complied with". "The problem was that the fishermen's association and the fishermen had a different schedule", said the public health inspection technician in the oral hearing, pointing out that "then the fishermen went directly to the distributor and delivered the fish without any documentation", the same being issued "later". She even added that on many occasions "the fish was left in the vans and, without weighing or examining the cargo, those from the fishermen's association made the labels and first sale invoices trusting their word".
The judge considers that "as a consequence of this malpractice", the defendant Saúl Levi Hernández "could perfectly not present the large grouper for examination and obtain a label and first sale invoice for a grouper of lesser weight". "With this irregular practice of the fishermen's associations, the health of consumers throughout the island of Lanzarote has been endangered for many years and it is even surprising that there have not been more outbreaks of ciguatera contamination like this one over the last few years", she states.
"I thought I was dying"
It was one of those affected who also raised the alarm through La Voz and reported what happened on December 12, as until that moment Public Health had not made the situation public, despite the fact that the first case had been diagnosed three days earlier.
Both this woman and another of those affected by the ciguatera outbreak then recounted their experience to La Voz. "I thought I was dying", confessed a man who after consuming the fish began to suffer an ordeal with diarrhea, cramps, toothaches, itching and, above all, alteration of thermal sensations. "I touch cold water and it's like grabbing ice, it burns me. The sensation is like when you've been playing with snow and your hands are burning. You don't know if you're cold or hot", he related.
