Source: AFP
October 26, 2011

Washington, DC - "US authorities slapped a US Virgin Islands company on Wednesday with a record $4.5 million in total fines for trading in thousands of pounds of protected black coral in the United States.

The Justice Department said GEM Manufacturing was sentenced to the highest financial penalty ever imposed on a firm involved in the illegal coral trade.

The company headquartered in St. Thomas was sentenced for "knowingly trading in falsely-labeled, protected black coral that was shipped into the United States in violation of the Endangered Species Act and the Lacey Act," the agency said in a statement."

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