From rivers to black markets: how law enforcement in Europe is disrupting eel trafficking
The port of Tarifa, in the far south of Spain, is one of the hotspots for drug trafficking between Europe and the North Africa region. But there are other kinds of smuggling going through the port. On 29 December 2017, the spanish Civil Guard arrested a smuggler trying to cross the Strait of Gibraltar to Morocco with 65 kilos of live glass eels. When they stopped him, they discovered almost 200,000 of these juveniles of the Anguilla Anguilla, the European eel, in his car. They were packed in plastic bags filled with water and camouflaged in suitcases of clothes.
The trafficker was part of a Chinese criminal group based in Spain with branches in Portugal and Morocco. What the agents uncovered shows the level of sophistication and scale that the glass eel trafficking mafias have reached. Following their arrest by the Guardia Civil as part of Operation ELVER, they found a facility in Algeciras (Cádiz) with water tanks where the elvers were centralised before being smuggled out. According to the Guardia Civil, 364 suitcases were found there, ready to transport more than 5,000 kilos of eels to China, with which they would have made an estimated profit of 38 million euros.
International eel trafficking is one of the largest and most lucrative wildlife crime businesses, according to Europol. The European eel is on the verge of extinction and its export and import into the EU was banned in 2010, but high demand in Asia has put it in the sights of organised crime.
The glass eels are caught in Europe and shipped to Asia, mainly China, hidden in suitcases or camouflaged in shipments of fresh fish. It is a long and dangerous journey, which many do not survive. Over there, they are fattened in fish farms until they become eels, which are exported to countries such as Japan, where they are highly prized for traditional dishes such as Kabayaki. Both the endangered Japanese eel (Anguilla japonica) and the American eel (Anguilla rostrata) are also used for aquaculture, but only the European eel is included in the CITES Convention (since 2009, in Appendix II).
The arrest in Tarifa resulted in the largest fine known in Spain for eel trafficking: in January 2022, the magistrate of the Criminal Court of Algeciras, Luna González Pinto, fined the trafficker 7.2 million euros and sentenced him to 1.3 years in prison, the same period as the Public Prosecutor’s Office had requested.
The siege to eel trafficking
In recent years, the Spanish Civil Guard has intensified its fight against the networks of eel smugglers operating in the last strongholds of the species and in the country’s main ports and airports. The blows have been constant – at the beginning of this year, a shipment of 192 kilos of live glass eels was intercepted in the port of Algeciras, ready to be smuggled in boxes of polystyrene.
The effectiveness of Spanish law enforcement can be explained, in part, due to their specialisation against environmental crime. Many of the operations are led by the Civil Guard’s Nature Protection Service (Seprona), with a Central Operational Environmental Unit (UCOMA) that supports the units deployed throughout the territory.
Since 2016, six key operations have been developed against smuggling mafias and illegal fishing of glass eels: ABAIA, ELVER, FAME and ASKEA (I, II and III). According to the Environmental Information Bulletin published by Seprona and the annual statistics of the Ministry of the Interior, in these six operations alone, thousands of inspections were carried out and 125 people were arrested and investigated.
One of these detainees was held in custody by court order (in operation ASKEA II, between November 2020 and May 2021), a measure reserved for extreme cases that had never before been taken for eel trafficking – something that, according to Seprona, shows a greater judicial awareness about the protection of natural resources and wildlife crimes.
In these actions, Seprona agents target all stages involved in the eel extinction business. Both illegal fishing in the traditional capture areas of the juveniles, the rivers and estuaries of the Cantabrian, the Guadalquivir estuary in Andalucia, or the Mediterranean Sea; and illegal trafficking, targeting the criminal networks operating in different countries to smuggle the fish out to Asia.
This law enforcement effort has resulted in the seizure of 20,676 kilos of European eel in 87 cases from 2015 to 2021, according to data provided by the Spanish CITES authority, analysed by WWF Spain as part of the SWiPE project.
But this is not just a Spanish problem. These actions are part of Operation Lake, coordinated by Europol in 24 European countries since 2016. In the 2017-2018 season, Europol estimated that around 100 tonnes of elvers were smuggled from the European Union to Chinese fish farms, according to information contained in the latest report on wildlife trafficking by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime. The law enforcement effort has paid off – since the operation was launched in 2016, eel trafficking from Europe has been halved by 50%.
The dramatic decline of a mysterious fish
The activity of these mafias is mainly concentrated in Spain, Portugal and France, although the species can be found across Europe. It is one of the most mysterious creatures in the animal world. A slippery, snaky-bodied fish that lives in rivers and coastal wetlands until, as adults, they disappear out to sea. In autumn and winter, their juveniles – the glass eels – reappear, moving up the river mouths.
The secret of the origin of European eels was not revealed until the early 20th century, when marine biologist Johannes Schmidt discovered that they reproduced in the Sargasso Sea, in the Atlantic, after an incredible journey of 5,000 to 10,000 kilometers. It has taken 100 years for new scientific evidence to confirm Schmidt’s discovery, thanks to the tagging of adult eels with GPS transmitters, although this stage of their life cycle remains shrouded in mystery. In fact, this is one of the reasons why their juveniles, the glass eels, are targeted by wildlife trafficking mafias: no eels have yet been successfully reproduced in captivity.
What scientists are certain about is the population collapse of the Anguilla Anguilla, by more than 95% since 1980. The destruction and alteration of its habitat, especially due to the barrier effect of dams, and the overexploitation and illegal trade, have pushed this fish towards extinction: it is classified as ‘Critically Endangered’ by the International Union for Conservation of Nature. WWF has been calling for strong measures to be taken in order to save the species, including the protection and restoration of freshwater ecosystems, including barrier removals on rivers. Scientific recommendations calling for fishing reduction should also be followed.
Despite its dramatic situation, the success of law enforcement in protecting this treasure of European biodiversity is a hopeful sign for the future of the species. The reduction on eel trafficking reported by Europol shows how, with the right resources and coordinated action across Europe, these wild crimes against life can be reduced.
