Spanish and Portuguese authorities on Friday said that they have taken down a criminal network that made large profits by smuggling glass eels to Asia.
Authorities across the continent have been trying to tackle the smugglers, who take European glass eels to Asian countries, where they are raised into adults and their meat commands high prices for local delicacies.
Trade in the European eel has been restricted since 2009 under the rules of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora. The EU has banned all exports outside the union and regulated internal sales, although an underground black market in eels has thrived in recent years.
In the latest operation, four Chinese citizens, three Spaniards and three Moroccans were arrested in Spain in an operation coordinated by Europol.
The Spanish Civil Guard said that 460kg of glass eels were seized in southern Spain, adding that their market value, once the eels have grown into adults, is estimated at more than 400 million euros (US$492 million).
One kilogram of baby eels could yield 1.3 tonnes of adult eels, investigators said.
More than 100 tonnes of juvenile eels evade wildlife traffic controls every year in Europe, Sustainable Eel Group chairman Andrew Kerr said.
“That’s nearly one-fourth of the total European eel natural stock,” Kerr said on Friday. “It’s the biggest wildlife crime action in Europe and it’s hidden from everyone.”
Friday’s disclosure showed how the ring exported the baby eels bought in Spain through Portugal and Morocco, and how the eels were concealed in suitcases or in cargo containers and sent to Hong Kong, China, South Korea and other Asian markets.
Police also seized 364 suitcases possibly used to smuggle the eels, Spanish Civil Guard Colonel Jesus Galvez told reporters in Madrid.
Because eels cannot be bred in captivity, the wriggling glass eels —or elvers — are usually fished and raised to maturity at aquaculture farms in Asia, where pollution, climate change and poaching has diminished stocks of the Japonica Anguilla species.
Since the glass eel fishing season began at the end of the fall, Portugal has arrested 28 people and seized 1 tonne of glass eels during 18 raids.
Meanwhile, Spain has since November arrested or identified as suspects 89 people, confiscating more than 2.3 tonnes of baby eels.
The seized eels have been reintroduced to the wild, Galvez said.
Europol European Serious and Organized Crime Centre Head Jari Liukku compared the benefits from illicit wildlife trading to those of drug, arms or human trafficking.
“Punishments are low and the conviction rate for environmental crimes is still low,” he said.
‘SPIKES’: Rudy Giuliani at a hearing asked about voting data in Pennsylvania, with a witness saying that 570,000 votes they selected were for Biden and 3,200 for Trump US president-elect Joe Biden on Wednesday said that Americans “won’t stand” for attempts to derail the US election outcome, as US President Donald Trump called for results to be overturned. Biden said in his hometown of Wilmington, Delaware, that Americans “have full and fair and free elections, and then we honor the results.” “The people of this nation and the laws of the land won’t stand for anything else,” he said. However, Trump is challenging the results, with lawsuits under way in several states. “We have to turn the election over,” he told a hearing in Pennsylvania. “This election was rigged.” “All we need is
A CAUTIONARY TALE: Bookseller Lam Wing-kee speaks of the danger that his adopted home Taiwan now faces and the ordeal of his detention in China Lam Wing-kee (林榮基) leaned forward in his chair, answering quickly and sharply to issue a warning to the people of his new home, Taiwan. “Be ready now,” Lam said. “We should be more alert as citizens, we should get ready,” the 64-year-old Hong Konger said. “If they can take Hong Kong back, the next place, I feel, is Taiwan.” Late in Taipei at Causeway Bay Books Mark II, on the 10th floor of a nondescript building, Lam, a wiry, gray-haired bookseller, was sitting at his desk with a bemused gaze behind thin oval glasses. The desk was neat, but crowded with books and a
‘POLICE EVERYWHERE’: A law that would criminalize the publication of images of police officers was passed by the National Assembly and awaits Senate approval Violent clashes erupted in Paris on Saturday as tens of thousands took to the streets to protest against new security legislation, with tensions intensified by the police beating and racial abuse of a black man that shocked France. Several fires were started in Paris, sending acrid smoke into the air, as protesters vented their anger against the security law, which would restrict the publication of police officers’ faces. About 46,000 people marched in Paris and 133,000 in total nationwide, the French Ministry of the Interior said. Protest organizers said about 500,000 joined nationwide, including 200,000 in the capital. French President Emmanuel Macron late
Not enough beds and not enough doctors: a skyrocketing COVID-19 caseload is pushing hospitals in the Balkans to the cusp of collapse, in chaotic scenes reminding some medics of the region’s 1990s wars. After nearly a year of keeping outbreaks more or less under control, the nightmare scenario that the Balkans feared from the start of the COVID-19 pandemic is now starting to unfold. In hard-hit Bosnia-Herzegovina, one doctor described the distress of having to juggle the care of multiple patients whose lives were hanging by a thread. “The situation reminds me of the war, and I’m afraid it could get even worse
RSS