Corporate Crime Case Database

On May 1, 2026, a grand jury returned an indictment charging Ramon Plaza-Gregory, Ileana Cortes-Gonzalez, and Mo-Na-Co Biomedical & Environmental Corp. (Monaco) with conspiracy and Clean Air Act violations (18 U.S.C. § 371; 42 U.S.C. 7413(c)(1)).

Monaco is a company that owned a commercial incinerator in Aguadilla, Puerto Rico. Plaza-Gregory is the Monaco president and Cortes-Gonzalez is an operator at this facility that processed biomedical, pathological and miscellaneous waste.

Monaco operated under a permit that limited it to the type of materials that could be burned and the amount of emissions that could be released. Starting in August of 2021, Plaza-Gregory and Cortes-Gonzalez burned unpermitted materials, used malfunctioning equipment, and exceeded emissions limitations. After an inspector from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) told the defendants of the violations, Plaza-Gregory began operating Monaco’s incinerator on weekends and holidays. The defendants continued to operate the incinerator illegally and emissions excesses were documented again in July 2024. Following the permit expiration in September 2024, the defendants continued to illegally operate the incinerator on weekends until April 2026.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Criminal Investigation Division and the Federal Bureau of Investigation conducted the investigation. Both agencies participate in the Puerto Rico and U.S. Virgin Islands Environmental Crimes Task Force.

On April 27, 2026, the Boise Cascade Company pleaded guilty and was sentenced for a felony violation of the Lacey Act for its role in a timber trafficking scheme to evade anti-dumping duties (16 U.S.C. §§ 3372(a)(1), 3373(d)(1)(B)). Boise Cascade was ordered to pay a $6,382,000 fine (representing twice the gross profits it derived from the illegal wood at issue in this case), complete a five-year term of probation, and will implement a compliance plan. Boise Cascade is the third federal criminal enforcement action to come out of this large-scale duty evasion scheme.

Boise Cascade is a publicly traded company with a distribution center in Pompano, Florida. Boise Cascade purchased wood from Horizon Plywood (Horizon), whose principals, Noel and Kelsy Quintana, were sentenced in February 2024 for conspiracy and Lacey Act violations based on their illegal importation of hardwood plywood. Horizon employee, Marta Angelbello, was also sentenced after pleading guilty to making a false statement related to her role in the scheme.

Between 2018 and 2021, Boise Cascade’s Pompano location purchased hardwood plywood from Horizon, totaling more than $30 million. Beginning in approximately 2019, Boise Cascade purchased, received, sold, and transported hardwood plywood from Horizon knowing (including actions manifesting willful blindness) that hardwood plywood was illegally imported from China. Boise Cascade knew that Horizon smuggled the wood using falsified import declarations. For example, Horizon transshipped products from China to Malaysia, where it moved product into new containers, and then from Malaysia to the United States. Boise Cascade knew or should have known the plywood purchased from Horizon was sourced from China.

Boise Cascade was also aware that the United States executed a search warrant at Horizon’s warehouse in South Florida in January 2021. Despite knowing Horizon was under federal investigation, Boise Cascade still placed and received at least 10 new orders for birch plywood in the two weeks following execution of the search warrant.

Homeland Security Investigations conducted the investigation, with support from Customs and Border Protection.

On April 17, 2026, a court sentenced GOTEC Plus Sun, LLC, (GOTEC) for violating the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) hazardous waste storage provision (42 U.S.C. § 6928(d)(2)(A)). The company will pay a $270,000 fine and complete a one-year term of probation. General Manager Natalie Fehse was sentenced to pay a $5,000 fine and complete a five-year term of probation to include 10 months of home detention for the same charge.

GOTEC applied coatings and adhesives to metal automotive parts and generated hazardous waste when the manufacturing equipment was cleaned of overspray. The Kentucky Department of Environmental Protection inspected the facility in June 2024 and discovered 249 drums and 27 cubic yards of hazardous waste stored without a permit throughout the facility.

Between January 2022 and November 2024, GOTEC did not properly dispose of all the hazardous waste it was generating, including hazardous waste that had been accumulating at the facility since 2022. GOTEC stated that it stopped properly disposing of hazardous due to staffing issues, and decreased revenue during the COVID-19 pandemic. Instead, it stored hazardous waste at the facility without a RCRA permit.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Criminal Investigation Division conducted the investigation.

On April 10, 2026, a court sentenced Old Dutch Mustard Company, Inc., d/b/a Pilgrim Foods Company (Old Dutch), and company owner and president Charles Santich after a two-day sentencing hearing. Santich will serve 18 months’ incarceration, followed by one year of supervised release, and pay a $250,000 fine. The company will pay a $1.5 million fine and establish environmental compliance and ethics programs.

The defendants previously pleaded guilty to violating the Clean Water Act (CWA) (33 U.S.C. §§ 1311(a), 1319(c)(2)(A)). 

Due to a long history of CWA non-compliance beginning in the 1980s, Old Dutch Mustard has been subject to several enforcement actions by the U.S. EPA, the New Hampshire Department of Environmental Services (“NH DES”), and the New Hampshire Attorney General’s Office. As a result of these actions, EPA and NH DES have required continuous monitoring of an Unnamed Stream that flows underneath and in front of the facility, eventually flowing into the Souhegan River. Santich and his company sought to purposefully evade this monitoring.

Old Dutch manufactured vinegar and mustard products, generating acidic wastewater during the process. Much of this wastewater consisted of spilled or leaked vinegar, or discarded vinegar that did not meet specifications. Old Dutch did not have a permit to discharge process wastewater. Instead, it stored this wastewater in tanks, and a trucking company hauled one or two truckloads off-site daily to the Rochester Publicly Owned Treatment Works (POTW). Old Dutch paid the trucking company for transporting each load. A second wastewater stream consisted of stormwater that became acidic after flowing through areas of the facility (especially the tank farm) where vinegar had spilled. Old Dutch also paid the trucking company to haul this acidic stormwater to the POTW.

Santich reduced costs by ordering workers to discharge some of the wastewater to a manmade ditch formed by an abandoned railroad bed at the top of a hill behind the facility, from which the wastewater would flow into the Souhegan River. In May 2017, Santich hired an excavation company to extend an underground pipe to the top of the hill behind the facility. He then directed an employee to repeatedly pump wastewater through the underground pipe to the abandoned railroad bed. Once the process wastewater or contaminated stormwater discharged at the top of the hill, it flowed to the river. Old Dutch did not have an NPDES or any other permit to discharge pollutants into the river.

In March 2021, Santich directed the same excavation company to install a sump at the corner of the tank farm area to collect the acidic stormwater and pump it directly up the hill through the buried pipe. In late 2022, Santich hired the excavation company to clean out the undergrowth in the manmade ditch at the top of the hill and line it with riprap to better facilitate the flow of wastewater to the river.

On August 2, 2023, EPA agents executed a search warrant at the Old Dutch facility and witnessed this illegal activity. Agents observed liquid that smelled like vinegar discharging from the end of the underground pipe into the riprap-lined ditch. The wastewater discharge had a pH of 3.6. The agents then conducted a dye test starting at the sump outside the corner of the tank farm area. The dye discharged from the underground pipe at the top of the hill and flowed along the riprap-lined drainage ditch and down to the river.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Criminal Investigation Division conducted the investigation, with assistance from the New Hampshire Department of Environmental Services.

On March 4, 2026, Seafood Supply Company, L.P. (SSC) pleaded guilty to a two-count information charging the company with two felony violations of Lacey Act False Labeling (16 U.S.C. §§ 3372(d)(1), 3373(d)(3)(A)(i)). Sentencing is scheduled for June 17, 2026.

SSC is a seafood wholesaler in Dallas, Texas. Between January 2020 and February 2022, the company sold Chilean salmon that it falsely labeled as more expensive salmon from Scotland, Norway, and Canada. A conservate estimate of the illegal gains generated from this fraudulent “country-of-origin” labelling scheme is approximately $200,000.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration conducted the investigation.

On December 17, 2025, Applied Partners, LLC, pleaded guilty to violating the Clean Air Act for illegally handling regulated asbestos-containing material (RACM) (42 U.S.C. §§ 7412(h), 7413(c)(1)).

Between September and October 2019, Applied Partners conducted a demolition project at a defunct industrial site in Saginaw, Michigan. Applied Partners knew that the structure known as the “Powerhouse” contained RACM, but nevertheless instructed contractors to demolish the structure in violation of multiple National Emission Standards for Hazardous Air Pollutant work practice standards for asbestos.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Criminal Investigation Division conducted the investigation.

On December 15, 2025, a court sentenced Allwaste Onsite LLC d/b/a Onsite Environmental (Onsite) to pay a $512,000 fine, half due at sentencing, half within 90 days. The company also will complete a three-year term of probation. The company pleaded guilty to violating the Clean Water Act (CWA) for bypassing treatment processes in violation of its pretreatment permit (33 U.S.C. §1319(c)(2)(A)).

Onsite is an environmental management company that provides services related to non-hazardous liquid waste hauling and treatment. The investigation revealed that Onsite bypassed treatment processes and discharged untreated waste products directly into the sewer system at its Nashville facility, in violation of the Nashville Metro Water Services (MWS) pretreatment permit program. Plant supervisors directed employees to send untreated waste directly to the sewer when the equipment was broken or the plant exceeded its capacity to properly process waste. Those same supervisory employees tried to cover up the illegal discharges by manipulating a sampling device that MWS installed at the facility to monitor the company’s discharges.

The $512,000 fine represents $16,000 per day of bypassing. As a special condition of the probation, Onsite must comply with a previous state court order entered into with MWS to enact a facility operating plan. Additionally, as part of the state court Order, Onsite paid the following: $86,628 to MWS for expenses related to sewer repairs and clean-up, $299,576 for surcharges related to pollutant exceedances, and $50,387 for water and sewer charges, as well as implementing several plant and equipment upgrades. Employees Caleb Randall and David Stark are under indictment.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Criminal Investigation Division and EPA Office of Inspector General conducted the investigation. 

On December 3, 2025, a court sentenced Branden Trager and Mayhem Services, LLC, for violating the Lacey Act (16 U.S.C. §§ 3372(a)(2)(A), 3373(d)(2)). Trager will pay a $100,000 fine, complete a three-year term of probation, and perform 180 hours of community service. Mayhem will pay a $75,000 fine and complete a three-year term of probation. Both defendants must make public statements on their websites and in a hunting trade journal apologizing for their criminal activity and promoting respect for hunting laws.

Trager owns Mayhem Services and operates guided hunting and fishing trips in the Pacific Northwest. Trager organizes hunts specifically targeting the harlequin duck, a rare sea bird prized by hunters. Washington State closed harlequin duck hunting season from 2022 to 2024, so Trager took three hunting parties to British Columbia, Canada, where it was still legal to hunt them. However, Canadian law prohibits non-citizens from obtaining guiding licenses. Trager conspired with a Canadian taxidermist to illegally shoot the harlequin and then export the mounts back to the United States.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Office of Law Enforcement conducted the investigation, with assistance from Homeland Security Investigations, the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife, and British Columbia Conservation Officer Service. 

On October 16, 2025, a court sentenced Eagle Ship Management, LLC (Eagle), to pay a $1,750,000 fine and complete a four-year term of probation to include implementing an environmental compliance plan. Eagle pleaded guilty to violating the Act to Prevent Pollution from Ships (33 U.S.C. § 1908). This case stems from the deliberate discharge of approximately 10,000 gallons of oily bilge water overboard in U.S. waters off the coast of New Orleans from the M/V Gannet Bulker, a foreign-flag vessel registered in the Marshall Islands.

A member of the ship’s crew reported the illegal discharge to the U.S. Coast Guard via social media. At the time of the discharge, the Gannet Bulker was at an anchorage near the mouth of the Mississippi River in New Orleans, within U.S. navigable waters.

Kirill Kompaniets, the vessel’s Chief Engineer, was previously sentenced to serve a year and a day in prison followed by six months of supervised release, and to pay a $5,000 criminal fine, for obstructing justice and directing the illegal discharge.

The U.S. Coast Guard conducted the investigation.

On August 27, 2025, V. Ships Norway, A.S. pleaded guilty to violating the Act to Prevent Pollution from Ships (33 U.S.C § 1908(a)). The company was sentenced to pay a $2 million fine, complete a four-year term of probation, and implement an Environmental Compliance Plan.

V. Ships Norway operated the M/T Swift Winchester. On several occasions, crew members transferred oily waste from the vessel’s incinerator waste oil tank into the sewage tank. That oily waste was then discharged directly into the ocean without using the required pollution prevention equipment. 
The vessel’s Chief Engineer also ordered the crew to clean the Oil Water Separator filters on the ship’s deck. The crew hosed off the filters, allowing the oil and debris to run over the side of the ship into the ocean. The vessel then entered the ports of Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and Port Arthur, Texas, with a knowingly falsified Oil Record Book.

The U.S. Coast Guard Investigative Service and Coast Guard Marine Safety Unit Port Arthur conducted the investigation.
 

On August 6, 2025, a court sentenced Jeremy Pierce and his company, Pierce Diesel Performance, to jointly pay a $375,000 fine and complete three-year terms of probation. Pierce pleaded guilty to a felony violation of the Clean Air Act for tampering with a monitoring device (42 U.S.C. § 7413(c)(2)(C)). Pierce Diesel Performance pleaded guilty to conspiracy to violate the Clean Air Act (CAA) for providing technical support to customers nationwide who purchased tuning devices and tunes from his brother Barry Pierce's company, Gorilla Diesel Performance (GDP) (18 U.S.C. § 371).

A court sentenced Barry Pierce and his companies, GDP Tuning and Gorilla Performance, in July 2024, after they pleaded guilty to conspiracy and violating the CAA (18 U.S.C. § 371; 42 U.S.C. § 7413). Pierce served four months’ incarceration, with one year of supervised release. GDP Tuning and Gorilla Performance are completing five-year terms of probation. All defendants were ordered to jointly pay a $1 million fine.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Criminal Investigation Division conducted the investigation.