Billion-euro eel smuggling trade pushes European species toward extinction

In Plentzia, a fishing village near Bilbao in Spain's Basque Country, the waters that once sustained generations of eel fishermen have been closed to them. The regional ban arrived as an emergency measure, a last attempt to save the European eel from the edge of extinction. The species has collapsed by roughly 95 percent since the 1980s, and what remains is now worth more per kilogram than cocaine to the criminal networks that have made it their business.

Unai Eizaguirre has spent thirty years catching eels. He watches now as the regulations that were meant to protect the species have instead left legitimate fishermen like him with no income, while organized crime groups move hundreds of millions of glass eels—the transparent juveniles worth up to €9,000 per kilogram—across continents to Asia. The irony is not lost on him. "So it's the Basque fishermen who will make the eel extinct when the rest are allowed to fish?" he asked. The question hangs unanswered. Conservationists support the ban as necessary, but they acknowledge it is only a partial solution. Marine biologist Estibaliz Diaz, who works with the research institute AZTI, points to longer-term needs: removing hydroelectric dams that block migration routes and kill eels with their turbines. Yet time may be running out. Only about 12 percent of glass eels survive the journey from their spawning grounds in the Sargasso Sea to European waters. "I don't know if the eel has time to wait for these projects to show their effects," Diaz said.

The eel's vulnerability lies partly in its extraordinary life cycle. Adult eels migrate thousands of kilometers from European rivers to the Sargasso Sea in the North Atlantic, their only known breeding ground. They spawn and die, leaving their larvae to drift back to Europe over years. By the time they reach rivers, they have transformed into the glass eels that traffickers prize above almost any other wildlife. The EU banned the export of eels outside the bloc in 2010, hoping to choke off the trade. Instead, organized crime groups moved in, and the illegal market now generates an estimated €3 billion in profits during peak years. The comparison to drug trafficking is not metaphorical. "Every year they seize tons of illegally caught eel in Europe," Eizaguirre said. "The big business lies in trafficking them to Asia." The profits are so large, and the penalties for smaller infractions so modest, that the risk calculus favors the smugglers. When criminal organizations are caught, fines can reach six times the value of the smuggled eels, but enforcement remains sporadic.

Demand in China, South Korea, and Japan drives the prices higher. A biological fact makes the trade essential to those markets: eels have proven nearly impossible to breed in captivity. Fish farms that raise eels for premium restaurants and sushi markets depend on a steady supply of wild-caught juveniles. Sometimes the same smuggled eels that left Europe illegally return as fillets, completing a circuit that leaves no trace of their origin. Florian Stein, head of policy and science at the German Angling Association and an expert on eel trafficking, estimates that at least 100 tons of glass eels are smuggled annually—roughly 300 million individual fish. But contacts within the illegal trade have convinced him that figure is "very conservative." Between 2024 and 2025, Europol's Operation Lake seized 22 tons of glass eels and arrested 26 suspects, a significant haul that barely dents the flow.

The routes have grown more complex as law enforcement has tightened. A decade ago, Madrid airport was a primary smuggling hub, its proximity to fishing grounds in northern Spain and Portugal making it ideal. Increased Spanish checks on flights to East Asia forced traffickers to adapt. Now a new corridor has emerged, running through North Africa via Morocco, Mauritania, and Senegal. The Strait of Gibraltar, only 14 kilometers wide at its narrowest point, serves as a busy maritime junction where drugs and other contraband also move regularly. Morocco itself has banned the export of glass eels smaller than 12 centimeters, yet the country is simultaneously building a legal domestic eel trading industry—a development experts fear provides cover for trafficked animals entering from Europe.

The smuggling methods are often crude. Glass eels fit into ordinary suitcases on domestic flights, placed in water-filled bags with insulation to maintain temperature. They can survive up to 48 hours in those conditions. Once in Asia, they move to fish farms where they are raised and eventually sold. The sophistication lies not in the transport but in the routing, the use of legal loopholes, and the sheer volume that makes interdiction nearly impossible.

Eels matter beyond their own survival. They are an indicator species for the health of ocean and river ecosystems, their long migrations making them vulnerable to problems that threaten other species. Herons, otters, and larger fish depend on them as prey. Yet the full impact of their disappearance remains difficult to predict. Under EU regulations, member states must allow 40 percent of adult eels to return to the Sargasso Sea to spawn. Diaz has called for ensuring that at least 40 percent of glass eels survive the journey back from the Sargasso. A proposal to protect all freshwater eel species from illegal and unsustainable trade was rejected at the 2025 CITES wildlife conference. Stein believes such protection is essential. "The proposal should be on the table again at the next conference," he said. "I just don't know how else we can get a handle on this problem." For Eizaguirre, the stakes are personal and cultural. "The eel for us is more than just a fish," he said. "It's been part of our identity for centuries." Whether that identity survives depends on decisions still to be made, and on whether enforcement can outpace the networks that have made the eel's extinction profitable.