A Story of Fraud in Seafood Industry in Mauritania

I am sharing this story of fraud in seafood industry in Mauritania in an effort to disclose the dark sides of doing business in Mauritania and warn about potential risks as the one below for those companies who want to do business in Mauritania.

International Trade involves multiple pillars to rely on for managing procurements, logistics, and risks for secure delivery of products, where with the development of modern methods and tools for risk reduction, forms and methods of fraud are developing as well, often involving innovative tools and methods that leave buyers trapped in fraud schemes. One such recent incident involved the company I represent – MOONFISH LTD from Toronto, Canada, which is involved in international trade of wholesale food commodities.

I first visited Mauritania in May 2021 after researching and finding several companies to potentially work with. During this visit I was met by the first company’s director, Mr. Fadel Kaabach of Primomare SARL company, who invited me to his house, introduced to his family, and visited SMCP with me – an institution dominantly owned and managed by the Government of Mauritania, the goal of which is to support export of seafood from Mauritania, control quality and prevent fraud.

During this visit I had several meetings with officials of SMCP, who gave me assurances that this institution guarantees payments by buyers, puts hold on any incoming payments unless quality of products are checked and export is approved by SMCP. In the beginning business was going well as Primomare SARL sent a number of containers of frozen fish ordered and paid for by MOONFISH LTD. As business was growing, volumes were growing too, as a result of which deposit payment amounts were growing too, up to a point when Primomare SARL had a deposit payment for an estimated volume of 75,000.00kg of frozen fish, which it failed to ship as a result of manipulating a fraud scheme.

How It All Started: Orchestrated Meetings & Representations

On May 17-21 I visited Nouadhibou, a port city in Mauritania specialized in frozen fish and seafood exports, where I first met Mr. Fadel Kaabach, director of Primomare SARL company. The latter organized high level meetings at SMCP, office of Maersk shipping line, and a factory, which Mr. Fadel claimed was his own factory, where he gave instructions to employees, showed samples of products and opened “his” office on the second floor with a key and did some works at a desktop computer.

It was only a year and half after that when I found out that it was not his factory, and it all had been orchestrated for his visit. Moreover, assurances and guarantees of government agency SMCP that payments of exporters would be safe and guaranteed turned out to be false.

Initially, MOONFISH LTD placed orders for frozen fish destined from Mauritania to Ukraine. First shipments were delivered on time and the parties started to discuss growing business and volumes. All orders and contracts placed by MOONFISH LTD were with Incoterms 2010 CIF port of delivery. Payment terms were with 30 per cent prepayment before shipment, and balance of 70 per cent to be paid against copies of original documents after shipment, whereas every payment was made based on an invoice accompanied by documents provided by SMCP that was supposed to guarantee quality and shipment of goods.

In October 2021 MOONFISH LTD placed another revolving order of three containers, a total estimated volume of 75,000.00 kg of frozen fish to be destined to Ukraine, for prompt shipment with Incoterms CIF Odessa. In November, Mr. Fadel Kaabach sent copies of original documents and provided tracking number of container sent by shipping line, which showed goods were “in transit”, and claimed SMCP wanted us to pay full balance to start the loading of other orders. Moreover, he sent a picture from Maersk shipping line office in Nouadhibou claiming that originals were issued, a draft Bill of Lading with tracking number and showed a document by SMCP to confirm that shipment was approved.

MOONFISH LTD made all payments on time, however, shipments were being delayed all the time and all I was hearing every week was “next week”. Supplier was putting the blame for failure to ship on time on “Maersk shipping line”, “COVID-19”, “lack of electricity” in the port, SMCP and various other reasons that delayed the shipment till February 24 (shipment was delayed for 3 and half months blaming Maersk, SMCP and COVID-19) when a war broke out in Ukraine. As soon as the war broke out, MOONFISH LTD asked to hold the shipment for a short while till a new port of delivery would be given, and in two weeks only gave new instructions to ship the orders either to Klaipeda or Poti port, both of which were accepting shipments all the time since then. However, supplier failed to ship this time too. This is when it was clear that the Canadian company was trapped in a fraud scheme. To find a solution, MOONFISH LTD sent letters to SMCP, which were left unanswered.

In April 2022, I attended seafood show in Barcelona where I approached the national stand of Mauritania. The stand housed a number of companies, who were accompanied by officials from SMCP and the Government of Mauritania. I approached and shared about the problem with Mr. Mohamed Salem Louly, Exhibitions Commissioner of the Ministry of Fisheries and Maritime Economy of Mauritania, who was fluent in English and promised to address the issue and get back, and gave his business card. Following the show and that promise I sent multiple e-mails and tried to contact by phone, and all of my efforts were ignored and unanswered. MOONFISH LTD has even applied to the Canadian Embassy, which sent letters to SMCP too in order to help with the matter, and those letters were not answered either. Even it went much further – the Canadian Government, through the Canadian Embassy, has sent two diplomatic notes in relation with this matter to the Government of Mauritania, which have been ignored and left unanswered too. After the second note, on April 11, 2023, the Ministry of Fisheries opened a case file with a number 000167 and sent a letter to SMCP urging to address the matter, which was ignored and unanswered too. The role of SMCP is very important here because as a government agency, which participates in international exhibitions by representing that they guarantee payments, shipment and quality of shipped products, in fact has whitewashed this fraud by ignoring all communications and failed to provide the file of MOONFISH LTD’s orders, without which the Canadian company is unable to have enough official evidence from SMCP to apply to arbitration or local courts.

A Retrospective Look

In November 2022, I visited Mauritania for the second time to understand the situation and what was really happening. I visited the factory that had been shown to me the year before as the own factory of Mr. Fadel Kaabach, only to learn that it was not true and Primomare SARL had nothing to do with that factory. I was told at that factory that they did not know anyone named Fadel Kaabach and the factory had not had any owner or employee with that name.

I also found out that only one container out of the three that were fully paid had been delivered to port for shipment, the responsible shipping line for which was Maersk, which was still holding the goods in the port. I visited the local office of Maersk in Nouadhibou and met with a representative of Maersk office, who told me the load was surrendered to Maersk in November 2021 but “they had not had SMCP’s permission for export for more than two months”.

I contacted Mr. Fadel Kaabach and told him I was in Mauritania and asked to meet, in answer to which he said he was not in the country but I could go and see my stock. I was directed to another cold storage in Nouadhibou where, according to Fadel Kaabach, there would be a stock of 27mt of frozen fish, supposedly the second load out of the three. At this cold storage as I was checking the products, the employees of the cold storage checked and confirmed that only 18 metric tons of that product was in the warehouse. A professional quality inspection reported that the goods were not good for human consumption. Having understood that it was all lies and misrepresentations, I turned to SMCP as the guarantor by the Government of Mauritania for quality of shipments and exporters’ payments for help and returning my company’s deposit payments.

On November 5, 2023, I had a meeting with an official of SMCP, and addressed the issue during our meeting in his office that lasted 45 minutes, and asked to send the file of MOONFISH LTD’s orders. He assured that SMCP had the file of MOONFISH LTD’s orders, and that he would answer officially. After this meeting, as agreed and promised, MOONFISH LTD sent an official letter to him to request an answer with the file, however, this letter too was left unanswered and ignored too.

SMCP Should be Banned from Participation in International Seafood Expositions

SMCP participates in international seafood expositions, where it represents and warrants that as an agency with Government’s participation it controls the quality of shipments and guarantees payments of exporters from Mauritania. However, as this example shows, SMCP fails to control the quality of shipments, fails to guarantee the payment of exporter, and even is showing a totally unacceptable and unprofessional behaviour by ignoring all communications by a buyer, and even the Embassy of Canada, the Government of Canada and is not providing what by law it must provide to MOONFISH LTD – the file of its orders. In fact, as the case with this company shows, instead of guaranteeing payments and quality and shipment of products, SMCP is in fact whitewashing the fraud of Primomare SARL, which makes it a participant of this fraud scheme, due to which organizers of international trade shows should reconsider their decision to allow the participation of this entity in their exhibitions. In general, I have approached the stand of Mauritania during three international exhibitions – twice in Barcelona and once in Boston, and all three times I was given assurances that upon return, SMCP would get back to me with an official answer, which it again failed to do.

Questions Need to Be Asked to Shipping Line Too

I have tried to approach Maersk several times but have not received any answer yet because the company I represent was not the consignee, and neither the ordering party. The question I have to ask to Maersk is how it was possible that Maersk online tracking system was showing that the goods were “in transit” but later it disappeared from the system and it turned out they had not even left the port of Nouadhibou. The final consignee at destination checked multiple times at destination too, and the local office of Maersk in Ukraine too said that the “goods were in transit”. I don’t want to believe that employees such a reputable company as Maersk is could be involved in such schemes, but there are questions they need to answer too. Ideally, it would be great if Maersk could conduct an internal investigation to reveal and troubleshoot the loopholes that allowed Primomare SARL do this fraud. I have copies of necessary documentation and can provide and cooperate in an effort to improve these procedures to exclude such cases against other companies in the future.

The Moral Side of the Story

This fraud was committed during the hard times of the beginning of war in Ukraine, and upon the very first demand of Ukrainian customers MOONFISH LTD returned all deposit payments for goods to its customers and absorbed the loss in order to keep its promise and image as a reliable company. However, I want to ask Mr. Fadel Kaabach and SMCP’s representatives who participated in this fraud scheme – how moral is of you to invite me to your home, introduce to your family and eat dinner with me and then steal the money of food for people in war…? I am asking this question also as a kind reminder to entrepreneurs who go to Mauritania and expect business ethics and morality based on their own standards.

A Clue I Ignored

Recently I remembered a short incident during my first visit to Nouadhibou when having a dinner at a local restaurant with Mr. Fadel Kaabach. During our dinner a man approached us and asked in Spanish, “Man, I see you want to do business with Fadel?”. “Yes,” I replied. And then he went on saying, “Have you watched the movie The Mauritanian?” I said “No”. He went on saying that Mauritanians had a difficult history, and there are many stereotypes about that country. “Watch that movie,” he said. Upon returning from Mauritania, I watched the movie and my impression was that he was trying to say that people suffer because of stereotypes, and I forgot about it. However, after this fraud and not being able to recover the losses or prove in a meaningful way, and also being faced with strong directed untrue criticism in social networks through lies and misrepresentations, I watched that movie again, and here is what that man was trying to tell me: “He will lie to you, and you will never be able to prove it!” This is also my message to everyone who wants to do business with Mauritania – watch The Mauritanian movie before doing business with that country, and always keep in mind that “They may lie to you, and you will never be able to prove it!”

P.S. This article has no intent to generalize and imply that these practices are true about everyone in Mauritania. Notwithstanding the disappointing experience above, I have met honest people too in Mauritania, who were pure in their intentions, hearts and showed good professional ethics in their dealings. Even though there are honest and good people too in Mauritania, overall, the success rate of business is extremely low in that market, and the ability of the Government to prevent corruption and fraud is almost non-existent. It is due to people with bad intentions like the one above that good people in Mauritania lose business opportunities, in the end of the day taking out incomes from the pockets of honest people, leaving the economy in poor conditions and struggling in a vicious cycle. People and businesses with malevolent intent like the one in this story should be banned generally from doing business in seafood industry, and unless this happens and unless SMCP takes it seriously and shows professional approach to its role, right after the first dealing most entrepreneurs may be faced with a situation when they may make the same decision as I did – NEVER RETURN, AND NEVER DO BUSINESS WITH MAURITANIA AGAIN !

Narrated by Kamo Mayilyan of MOONFISH LTD, Toronto, Canada

April 21, 2024

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