The head of the judicial police in Manta, Col. Rommel Tapia said on Thursday that nine different properties were raided in the city, and six people were arrested, including a person of Chinese nationality. All have been charged with damaging wildlife.
Ecuador’s interior minister José Serrano told the Democracia radio station that authorities in Ecuador had “dealt a major blow to an international network that trafficked shark fins,” according to the Guardian.
A spokesperson for the Galapagos Conservation Trust said: “The seizure of so many shark fins on mainland Ecuador, just 1,000 km away from the Galapagos Islands, is deeply distressing. Sharks play an essential role in the marine ecosystem and removing them can cause the entire marine ecosystem to collapse.”
Shark fishing is banned in Ecuador. But the ban on fishing for sharks doesn’t mean a thing to traffickers of the fins. Shark finning, as it is called, is a very lucrative business, so much so that it has been linked to organized crime. In 2007, the annual estimated value of the shark fin trade was over $1.2 billion, with China being the biggest consumer of shark fins. Most shipments of shark fins come through Hong Kong, with over a third of the shipments coming from Europe.
Shark fins are the most expensive seafood in the world, selling for more than $650 a kilogram. It is not unusual in China to get shark fin soup in a restaurant and pay $320 for a bowl of the soup.
In 2014, Digital Journal reported on shark finning going on in Costa Rica, and the difficult problem of bringing traffickers to justice. The article discusses the apparent loopholes in Costa Rica’s fishing laws that make it nearly impossible to prosecute traffickers.
Shark finning is done on the open water so that once the fins are removed, the still living shark can be dumped overboard. Bleeding and unable to swim, the hapless animal either sinks to the bottom of the ocean, where it suffocates or is eaten by other prey animals, altogether, a horrible way to die.
