Michael Hiltzik: This government price-fixing case makes the tuna industry sound like the mafia

Speaking as a lifelong aficionado of the tuna fish sandwich on rye, I was relieved to learn that Bumble Bee's Nov. 21 bankruptcy filing wouldn't mean the eradication of the brand from store shelves - it would merely come under new ownership.

Yet there's much more to it than that. The bankruptcy filing is an outgrowth of a price-fixing case that makes tuna processing seem a lot wilder and more colorful on dry land than it is at sea.

In fact, judging from the federal allegations, the guilty pleas filed by all three major tuna processing companies and several of their executives, and other documents, a lot went on in this industry that wouldn't be out of place in a Martin Scorsese movie.

There are secret meetings to plot criminal strategies, participants turning state's evidence to cut a better plea deal than their co-conspirators, even the allegation of a sotto voce threat delivered with a brotherly hand on the