Authors suppose the amounts of fraudulent seafood sales reported in recent years to be somehow correlated to the problems of Italian commercial fish-naming policy. However, given the lack of data and studies, the work has an exploratory nature focusing on three main issues: the seafood labeling policy framework, the evolution of lists of fish species’ trade names and the spread and type of fraudulent sales. According data authors believe that the fish-naming system is improving, however that lack of studies estimating the right amount of diversification in trade names for marine species seems so to be a weakness for a winning policy. Furthermore, seafood retailers seems to assume an important role on fraud management and government should support research for innovative species detection methods to be applied directly in retailers quality insurance systems. This would be a win-win strategy, preventing fraudulent behaviour and reducing the costs for public inspections.