An international network of glass eels, eel fry sold at inflated prices on the black market in Asia, has been dismantled in France, Spain, Belgium and Poland with the arrest of 27 traders on Wednesday, authorities said on Thursday.
The European crackdown led to the arrest of four sponsors in France, where a secret hatchery for smuggled glass eels and equipment used to store and replenish these endangered animals was discovered.
According to investigators, the traffic was “the work of an organized gang using the Franco-Spanish border to hide their criminal activities with Asia.”
In total, almost four tonnes of glass eels were fraudulently exported between 2021 and 2023, with an estimated profit of €1.18 million, according to the European investigative team.
Photo courtesy of Spanish Guardia Civil/AFP
French and Spanish gendarmes tip confiscated eels into a truck.
In France, around 115 agents were mobilized from the gendarmerie (Oclaesp and research departments of Bordeaux and Pau), the police, the Financial Investigation Service (SEJF), the French Biodiversity Agency and the National Brigade for Veterinary and Phytosanitary Research.
Investigations launched in 2021 uncovered the involvement of wholesalers, sales managers and fishermen harvesting this regulated species outside of quotas and uncovered illegal export channels through European airports, particularly through intermediaries. Asians living in the Paris region.
In Spain, the Guardia Civil arrested around 20 people and investigations were also carried out into facilities in Belgium and a restocking company in Poland suspected of being a “front company” for exports to Asia for smuggling.
Photo courtesy of Spanish Guardia Civil/AFP
Around 200,000 euros in cash and various goods worth 900,000 euros, including smuggled glass eels and vehicles, were confiscated.
The annual value of the illegal trade in glass eels, which have been in danger of extinction since 2010 and whose export outside the European Union is banned, is estimated at three billion euros. In France, where fishing is heavily regulated, between 700 and 900 euros per kilo are traded, in Asia up to 5,000 euros.
The smuggling of the European eel called “Anguilla anguilla” is one of the reasons for the 75% decline in its population in thirty years.