Alaska Wildlife Troopers are charging four members of the Fields family as well as their fishing business, Fields & Sons Inc., for allegedly generating $1.17 million in illegal revenue between 2020 and 2024. That’s according to a dispatch from Alaska State Troopers on Tuesday, April 8.
Duncan, Wallace, Beth, and Leslie Fields –all of Kodiak – are charged with perjury and lying on fish tickets. Duncan and Wallace Fields are also both charged with multiple counts related to fraud, theft, and other fishery violations.
Duncan Fields serves on multiple boards, including the Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute and the Kodiak Island Borough School District’s Board of Education.
Fields said in a text message that the family and crew have been gifting permits to each other for 30 years. He said it “is a common practice in the industry,” and added that he thinks his family has “been singled out to try to set an example.”
Fields said that the charges aren’t supported by the facts.
The charges, however, come after a yearlong investigation by Wildlife Troopers, according to the dispatch, after they received a tip in March of 2024 about suspicious fishing permit activity. During the investigation, troopers claim to have found the family was falsely gifting salmon setnet permits to crewmembers and later reclaiming them.
Troopers interviewed 21 crewmembers, according to the dispatch, and say there was a coordinated scheme involving family members lying under penalty of perjury as well as defrauding the state and fish buyers.
