Spanish police arrested 29 people after they took 180 kg of critically endangered European eels with a value on the €270,000 237,000 hidden market. The operation, in collaboration with Europol, has resulted in 20 arrests elsewhere in Europe, according to the Guardia Civil.
Thousands of elvers, or glass eels prized as a delicacy in Spain and parts of east Asia, were found after officers carried out more than 3,000 checks and inspections in ports, airports and other transport hubs.
The Guardia Civil said most of the offences relate to illegal fishing, illegal possession, illegal trafficking of endangered species and violations of laws governing natural spaces.
Since Covid's flight restrictions were eased, eel smuggling has gone up, according to the force.
Criminal organisations have gone back to illegally exporting elvers disguised as hand luggage using special cases that contain bags injected with oxygen, it said. We also tracked down shell companies that set up to ship elvers hidden in refrigerated food. We would remind people that the export of elvers is strictly prohibited. The Guardia Civil said eel smuggling had become a lucrative business for highly organised gangs of international criminals who constantly update their routes and methods to escape the police.
It's become more common for them to choose different departure routes and use airports in Serbia, Macedonia and other eastern European countries, far from where the animals are fished, it added.
A large part of the confiscated elvers have been released into the Ebro Delta in north-east Spain.
A seafood salesman was found guilty of smuggling 200 kg of glass eels worth more than 53 m out of the UK in February 2020.
Gilbert Khoo, 66, transported the elvers from London to Hong Kong hidden beneath other fish between 2015 and 2017.
The European eel Anguilla anguilla is classed as critically endangered on the International Union for Conservation of Nature's red list of threatened species.
Pressures from trade and unknown quantities in illegal trade continue to be a conservation concern for the species, according to the IUCN website.