Over a quarter of a century, Robert G. Coutu built an international seafood business from what was once a tiny fish store owned by his maternal uncle on Route 1 in North Attleboro. When catches in the North Atlantic began to dwindle in the 1980s, he began to import from foreign countries, beginning with Canada and Iceland. When the Canadian government cut fishing quotas in the late 1990s, he branched out to Ecuador and Peru.
He opened a satellite branch in Miami and from there and his Massachusetts location — which also had a retail store — he began selling fish worldwide.
When Coutu, his brother and father started Ocean Fresh Seafood in 1976, they were the only employees. By 1996, the business had more than 60 employees, annual gross revenues of $60 million and had been chosen by the government of Peru to underwrite the cost of a fishing and research vessel to serve as a classroom for university students.
But now Ocean Fresh is out of business and Coutu, 59, a former Cumberland resident, is facing up to 30 years in prison for a multi-million-dollar bank fraud scam that reads like something out of a novel. The thrice-married Pawtucket high school graduate has been incarcerated for the past 34 months in the Wyatt Detention Facility in Central Falls. He’s facing sentencing Tuesday in federal court, Boston. Prosecutors say he should go to prison for eight more years.
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