The Lacy Act Trafficking Penalties
Despite the many specific prohibition in the Federal fishery regulations and statues, many Federal prosecutions for trafficking offenses are brought against seafood companies and their executive under the Lacy Ac because this law governs the sale of all fishery products, provides for harsher penalties and prohibits a much broader range of activities. Specifically, the Act makes it unlawful to any person.
The basic elements of an offense under the Lacy Act are to:
Import-export, transport ,sell, receive acquire or purchase wildlife, fish or plants that have been taken, possessed, transported or sold in violation of a state, federal, foreign or tribal law or regulation.

Several aspects of the Lacy Act make prosecutions relatively easy.
A person violating the Act, for example, need not be the same person who took, possessed, transported, or sold the fish/shellfish in violation of the underlying state, federal or foreign law.
Culpability attaches to anyone who imports, exports, transports, receives, acquire, or purchase the fish/shellfish and who knows, or in exercise of due care should know that it was illegally taken, possessed, transported or sold.

Similarly, the government is not required to prove that the defendant knows which underlying law was violated or the nature of violation. Neither must the government prove that the defendant knew of the Lacy Act or knew that he violated it. The government needs only to prove that the defendant knew the fish was, in some fashion, taken, possessed, transported or sold illegally.

The underlying law that must be violated may take different forms. It may be a state fishing regulations, or a state statute that is criminal in nature but carries a lesser penalty than those of the Lacy Act, or it may even be a law or regulation that provides only a civil sanction