Tomato Racketeering Starts The Scrutiny Into The Food Sector

Tomato Racketeering Starts the Scrutiny Into the Food Sector

Randall Lee Rahal is a simple food salesman to his friends. He is someone who routinely left his home to traverse other places to sell California tomatoes. He sold the tomatoes pureed, crushed, or roasted and mashed into paste. He sold them to buyers who turned the tomatoes into soup, salsas and ketchup. These clients are usually food manufacturers, supermarket chains or commercial buyers.

But in the Justice Department's eyes, Randall Lee Rahal is a produce criminal who allegedly carries $100 bills and envelopes filled with cash to bribe buyers from leading food companies in a decade-old scheme that cause prices to soar up for consumers at the grocery stores.

In 2008, a series of court filings by the Sacramento federal prosecutors claim that Rahal, with 9 others and the SK Foods of Monterey used more than $330K in bribes starting from 1998 till 2008 to destroy competition and establish deals to sell SK Food's products to Kraft Foods, Safeway, Frito-Lay North America and B&G Foods, among other companies.

Everyone save for one pleaded guilty to the offenses (racketeering, bribery, collusion, bid rigging, and money laundering). Five of them worked for SK Foods; 4 were employed by their customers. SK Food's Sales went down as the case unfolded so the company went bankrupt and was sold to a Singapore firm last year.

Rahal, who pleaded guilty to the offenses, are up to 20 years in prison in his sentencing scheduled in May.

The investigation of SK Foods is just the beginning of the scrutiny into the food sector, according to federal prosecutors.


VIA modbee

keyword: sales lead