Customs authorities seized a large shipment of glass eels at Schiphol airport (near Amsterdam) earlier this week, the Dutch Food and Consumer Product Safety Authority (NVWA) announced on Thursday.
Two men and a woman from Malaysia transiting through Portugal were carrying several hundred thousand baby eels inside eight large identical red suitcases which caught the attention of airport security on Monday.
“Inside the suitcases were bags full of water and baby eels,” NVWA said.
“NVWA inspectors discovered 105 kilograms of glass eels.
This represents around 300,000 eels,” the authority said in a statement.
The three suspects were arrested and taken into custody.
The NVWA then seized the 105 kg of glass eels, which will be released into Dutch waters.
A protected species
The eel is a protected species and its export is subject to strict rules.
In 2010, the European Union banned all export of glass eels outside its borders.
The global decline in eel populations and the means put in place to save them have encouraged poaching and created a huge black market that would be more profitable than drug, human and arms trafficking.
The estimated annual value of the illegal trafficking of glass eels – eel fry – from Europe to Asia is estimated at three billion euros.
A traffic of glass eels, protected species, dismantled in France and Spain
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Biodiversity: Eleven green turtles, a protected species, found skinned off the coast of Malaysia
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Animals
Threatened species
Malaysia