United States v. Approximately 64,695 Pounds of Shark Fins
Why a cargo of detached shark fins escaped forfeiture, and how a gap between possession and landing rules became a due-process problem.
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64,695 pounds of fins, and a missing warning
The Coast Guard found approximately 64,695 pounds of shark fins aboard the King Diamond II, without a single corresponding shark carcass. The cargo’s owner did not dispute that it had purchased the fins from foreign vessels engaged in shark finning. Yet the government’s forfeiture judgment failed on appeal. The difficulty was identifying a prohibition that had fairly warned this operator that its conduct was covered. [1, pp. 2474–2479]
The possession rule then in force applied aboard a fishing vessel. The King Diamond II had been chartered to buy fins at sea and carry them to Guatemala. The government treated that commercial activity as assistance to fishing vessels, bringing the ship within a broader statutory definition. The Ninth Circuit held that neither the statute nor the implementing regulations gave adequate notice of that interpretation. [1, pp. 2478–2486]
For a lawyer defending a regulatory forfeiture, the useful question is precise: did the rule in force at the time identify this actor, this activity, and this asserted basis for taking its property? The decision’s answer depended on the wording of two adjacent regulations. Congress subsequently changed the law governing at-sea transfers, so the 2008 result cannot be used as a present-day operating plan. [1, pp. 2483–2486] [3, § 103]
A buyer at sea
Tai Loong Hong Marine Products, Limited, a Hong Kong seafood business, owned the fins. It chartered the U.S.-flagged King Diamond II, owned and operated by the Hawaii corporation Tran & Yu. The instructions were to rendezvous with foreign fishing vessels, purchase their fins, and deliver the cargo to Tai Loong Hong in Guatemala. Ownership of the ship and ownership of the cargo belonged to different businesses. [1, pp. 2474–2477]
The ship left Honolulu in June 2002. Over the next two months it purchased fins from more than twenty vessels. On August 14, Coast Guard officers boarded it roughly 250 miles off Guatemala. They escorted the vessel to San Diego, and the government seized the fins on August 23. [1, p. 2477]
The trial record contained a disputed explanation for the missing carcasses. Tai Loong Hong said the ship had loaded frozen carcasses and discarded them after its freezer failed. The government disputed that any carcasses had been purchased. The district court expressly left that factual dispute unresolved when deciding the vessel-classification motion. The absence of carcasses at boarding was established; the explanation for it was not. [6, pp. 1097–1098]
The unusual case name identifies the property the government sought to forfeit. Tai Loong Hong appeared as the claimant defending its ownership interest; this was a civil forfeiture proceeding, not a criminal conviction of the company. The parties eventually stipulated that the fins’ value at seizure was $618,956, fixing the amount at stake in the forfeiture judgment. [1, caption and pp. 2477–2478]
From seizure to repayment
The Coast Guard boards the King Diamond II; the government seizes its cargo nine days later in San Diego. [1, p. 2477]
The United States files its civil forfeiture complaint, relying on the prohibition against possessing fins aboard a fishing vessel without corresponding carcasses. [1, pp. 2477–2478]
After ruling that the vessel assisted fishing operations, the district court enters the forfeiture judgment based on the stipulated $618,956 value. [1, p. 2478]
The Ninth Circuit reverses for lack of fair notice and remands for further proceedings. [1, p. 2486]
On the parties’ joint motion, the district court orders disbursement and attorney fees, then dismisses the case with prejudice. [2, pp. 1–2]
Two routes to being a fishing vessel
The Shark Finning Prohibition Act of 2000 amended the Magnuson-Stevens Act. Its historical prohibitions separately addressed removing fins and discarding carcasses at sea, possessing the fins aboard a fishing vessel without corresponding carcasses, and landing them without corresponding carcasses. The government proceeded on possession. The separate landing prohibition applied to U.S. ports, whereas this voyage’s intended destination was Guatemala. [1, pp. 2475–2478, 2483–2484]
The then-numbered definition in 16 U.S.C. § 1802(18) supplied two routes. Subsection (A) concerned a vessel used, equipped, or normally of a type used for fishing. Subsection (B) extended to a vessel aiding or assisting other vessels at sea in fishing-related activities, including storage, refrigeration, transportation, and processing. [1, p. 2476]
District Judge Barry T. Moskowitz found a genuine factual dispute under subsection (A), so he did not grant summary judgment on that ground. He nevertheless ruled for the government under subsection (B): purchasing, storing, and transporting the fins assisted the foreign fishing vessels. That second route supplied the judgment reviewed on appeal. [1, p. 2478]
Was the buyer assisting the fishing boats?
The United States: offloading helped the fishing boats
The government’s theory connected the cargo ship to the fishing operation. Buying fins at sea removed cargo from fishing vessels, and the district court reasoned that this helped them remain at sea longer. Storage and transportation appeared expressly in the statutory list of activities. The government also relied on the agency’s explanation that receiving fins from another vessel at sea could make a cargo vessel a fishing vessel. [1, pp. 2479–2485]
Tai Loong Hong: a purchaser carrying its own goods
Tai Loong Hong disputed the classification and separately raised due process. The ship was buying the fins for the company’s own trade, then storing and transporting goods it owned. More pointedly, the regulation that expressly mentioned cargo vessels concerned landing, while the possession provision did not contain the same language. The company argued that those texts did not warn it that carrying purchased fins to a foreign port would trigger forfeiture. [1, pp. 2478–2479, 2484–2486]
The holding was about notice
Judge Stephen Reinhardt wrote for a unanimous panel with Judges Raymond C. Fisher and Richard R. Clifton. The opinion expressly reasoned that even if the ship came within subsection (B), the provision failed to give Tai Loong Hong fair notice that its activities made it a fishing vessel subject to the possession prohibition. Applying that prohibition on this basis therefore violated due process. [1, pp. 2471, 2478–2479]
That framing limits the holding. The court did not invalidate the entire shark-fin statute, announce that all cargo vessels were exempt, or decide that buying an unlawful product can never incur liability. It reversed this forfeiture because the asserted classification and the regulatory language did not adequately identify the prohibited conduct. [1, pp. 2478–2486]
Whose goods was the ship carrying?
The court understood assistance as activity performed for another’s benefit. Once the foreign vessels sold the fins, they retained no interest in them. Subsequent storage and transport served the buyer’s own commercial purposes, much as a purchaser warehouses or moves other goods. The statute listed storage and transportation, but those words still operated within the requirement of aiding or assisting fishing vessels. Purchasing itself was not among the listed activities. [1, pp. 2479–2481]
The court acknowledged that the sellers could benefit from a sale at a convenient offshore location. It nevertheless treated that benefit as incidental to the buyer’s own transaction. Neither the chosen rendezvous nor the ability of sellers to keep fishing cured the notice problem. Congress’s broad conservation objective likewise could not supply the missing warning about this category of buyer. [1, pp. 2481–2483]
The warning appeared in the landing rule
Former 50 C.F.R. § 600.1204(c), the landing rule, specifically included cargo vessels that received fins from fishing vessels at sea. Section 600.1204(b), the possession rule, did not. The agency’s preamble also discussed those transfers when explaining landing. The district court had drawn reassurance from that explanation; the court of appeals read it in the context of the particular prohibition it explained. [1, pp. 2483–2485]
Express inclusion in one provision and omission in another supported a reasonable reading that offshore purchasers were warned against landing detached fins in the United States, but not against possessing them for delivery abroad. The agency’s stated concern about interference with international trade reinforced that reading. A clear statement about one offense did not provide notice of the different offense the government had charged. [1, pp. 2484–2486]
The repayment order came three months later
The physical fins had already been released before the appeal. The district court’s 2005 opinion records that Tai Loong Hong posted a $775,000 bond as substitute property and recovered the cargo, which it then sold. That bond should not be confused with the later stipulated $618,956 value used in the forfeiture judgment. By the time of the remand order, the relief concerned money. [6, pp. 1096, 1098] [1, p. 2478]
The reversal left the financial outcome to proceedings on remand. The district court resolved it three months later. On June 16, 2008, Judge Moskowitz granted a joint motion directing the clerk to disburse $618,956 to Tai Loong Hong, plus accrued interest less the clerk’s permitted retention of ten percent of that interest. The United States was also ordered to pay $127,881.95 in reasonable attorney fees and litigation costs under 28 U.S.C. § 2465(b)(1). [2, pp. 1–2]
The same order certified reasonable cause for the detention, seizure, and attempted forfeiture. It recorded the claimant’s waiver of damages claims arising from those events, protected the seizing persons and prosecutor from suit on that account, and dismissed the case with prejudice. The fee award was therefore distinct from damages for a wrongful seizure. Winning the notice issue did not produce a ruling that officers lacked reasonable cause to act. [2, p. 2]
Congress addressed the transfer itself
The Shark Conservation Act of 2010 became law on January 4, 2011. Section 103 expressly prohibited transferring or receiving a shark fin between vessels at sea without the fin naturally attached to its corresponding carcass. It also created a rebuttable presumption concerning detached fins found aboard a vessel other than a fishing vessel. Those changes addressed the conduct that had made the old vessel classification so consequential. [3, § 103(a)]
Congress retained the fishing-vessel wording in the possession clause. Its new transfer-and-receipt prohibition reached the handoff between vessels directly. The statute also included a limited smooth-dogfish savings clause. [3, § 103]
A further federal measure, the Shark Fin Sales Elimination Act of 2023, took effect on December 23, 2022. NOAA describes broad prohibitions on possessing, acquiring, receiving, transporting, selling, or purchasing detached shark fins, subject to limited exceptions and exemptions for smooth dogfish and spiny dogfish. Whole sharks with fins naturally attached are treated differently, and other applicable fishing laws still matter. The historical victory in this case does not authorize today’s detached-fin trade. [4, questions 1–5 and 8]
What survives beyond fisheries
Other forfeiture cases still turn on the notice given before the government acts. In United States v. Ancient Coin Collectors Guild, the Fourth Circuit cited Shark Fins in 2018 for the due-process notice standard in another forfeiture dispute. But it rejected the importer’s defense: the Guild had actual notice of the government’s position and deliberately imported restricted coins to challenge the law. Citation to Shark Fins did not dictate a claimant’s victory. [5, part III.C.2.b, pp. 44–47]
For practitioners, the comparison directs attention to the specific notice record. Identify the charged prohibition, read its definitions with the neighboring provisions, and examine what the agency communicated before the conduct. Separate an argument about the statute’s best interpretation from the constitutional objection to imposing a sanction without adequate warning. Those are related questions, but the Ninth Circuit’s express assumption about subsection (B) shows why they should not be collapsed. [1, pp. 2478–2479, 2483–2486] [5, pp. 44–47]
Consider a historical counterfactual: if the same cargo had been destined for a U.S. landing, the regulation expressly mentioning cargo vessels would have made this particular notice argument substantially weaker. That is an inference from the opinion’s reasoning, not a ruling on an unlitigated landing charge. The actual case turned on possession during a voyage intended for a foreign port. [1, pp. 2483–2486]
Sources and citations
- Ninth Circuit opinion
March 17, 2008 · No. 05-56274 · 520 F.3d 976. Article pinpoints use the official PDF’s printed slip pages 2471 and 2474–2486.
- Order resolving the case on remand
S.D. Cal. · June 16, 2008 · Document 67 · pp. 1–2. Disbursement, fees, reasonable cause and dismissal.
- Shark Conservation Act of 2010
Public Law 111-348, Title I · January 4, 2011 · § 103, 124 Stat. 3670. Transfer prohibition and related provisions.
- Shark Fin Sales Elimination Act: NOAA FAQs
NOAA Fisheries · Updated November 21, 2024 · Questions 1–5 and 8. Current-law overview and exceptions.
- United States v. Ancient Coin Collectors Guild
Fourth Circuit · August 7, 2018 · No. 17-1625 · Part III.C.2.b, slip pp. 44–47. Later application of fair notice; court opinion hosted by Justia.
- District court summary-adjudication order
S.D. Cal. · January 20, 2005 · 353 F. Supp. 2d 1095, 1096–1098. Court opinion hosted by Midpage; disputed carcass account and substitute bond.
The portrait is a generated illustration using a chambers photograph of Stephen Reinhardt as its identity reference. Later-treatment research was checked on October 13, 2026; the cited decisions are illustrative, not a comprehensive citator history.
