Use the pulldown menus to visit other Food Central sections:
Recipes ---------- Today Recipe Swap	Resources ---------- Additives Alcohol Beer Beverages Coffee Dairy Fat Fruit Grains Herbs Italian Meat Organic Seafood Snacks Southern Sweets Tea Veggies Vitamins	Restaurants ---------- Atlanta Baltimore Boston Chicago Dallas Denver Detroit Fort Worth Houston Las Vegas Los Angeles Miami Minneapolis New Orleans NYC Orlando Philly Phoenix Pittsburgh Salt Lake San Antonio San Diego San Fran Seattle St. Louis Wash, D.C. ---------- Amsterdam Athens Bangkok Beijing Berlin Brussels Cairo Copenhagen Dublin Florence Frankfurt Hong Kong London Madrid Mex City Montreal Moscow Munich Nairobi Paris Prague Rio Rome Singapore St. Pburg. Sydney Tokyo Toronto Vienna Zurich

NEW YORK (Reuters) -- Three Polish men were indicted Friday on charges of smuggling thousands of pounds of Russian caviar into the United States, under a new provision adding sturgeon to an international treaty to protect endangered species.

U.S. officials alleged that the men sold approximately 19,000 pounds of imported sturgeon roe without a permit to U.S. caviar dealers between April and November this year.

They said the sturgeon roe was concealed in the luggage of airline passengers who were paid to be couriers. The indictment seeks the forfeiture of 2,000 pounds of caviar seized by U.S. Fish and Wildlife agents and $2 million in proceeds earned from the sales of other caviar imported by two of the men.

The indictment alleged that the caviar imports violated the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) and the Endangered Species Act. On April 1, all species of sturgeon, including those from which Beluga, Sevruga and Oscetra are derived, were added to the CITES list of endangered species.

Prosecutors said Friday's indictment was the first indictment under the new CITES provision on sturgeon.

"Sturgeon are quickly disappearing from the Caspian Sea," U.S. Attorney Zachary Carter of the eastern district of New York said in a statement. "By their intentional disregard for the import limitations on caviar, the defendants are killing the geese that lay the golden eggs."

The smuggling operation was exposed Oct. 28 when federal agents seized 1,000 pounds of unrefrigerated caviar in New York carried by seven airline passengers on a flight from Poland.

"As the world's leading importer of caviar and a signatory to CITES, the United States has an obligation to see that CITES is strictly enforced," Carter said in announcing the indictment jointly with U.S. Customs and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

The three men indicted Friday were Andrzej Lepkowski of Warsaw, Poland, Wieslaw Rozbicki and Eugeniusz Koczuk, both of Stamford, Connecticut. If convicted, each man faces up to five years in prison and a fine of $250,000 on each count.

Copyright 1998 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved.