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'Aquatic cocaine': Fish bladders are latest

Mexican smuggling commodity
By Kyung Lah and Alberto Moya, CNN
Updated 1409 GMT (2209 HKT) May 23, 2016

Story highlights
Totoaba fish bladders are prized for their
supposed benefits to health and beauty
Smugglers in Mexico are threatening the
species and another fish often caught in the
nets

(CNN) Jonathan Garcia Pereda snapped a photo,

the contraband glowing white in his smartphone.
Mexican federal police had stopped a 28-year-old
man from San Felipe at a checkpoint, discovering
black plastic bags balled up in the tires. It appeared
to be another familiar bust to the Mexican police,
until they cut open the bags.

One hundred twenty-one fish swim bladders lay

before Garcia Pereda on the concrete floor, most of
them white, some with shades of pink. The smell of
fish guts was overwhelming, a stench Garcia Pereda
never grew accustomed to, even as he went from bust after bust of the illegal smuggling. This was a
huge haul of "aquatic cocaine": 39 kilos of totoaba fish swim bladders, with a Hong Kong street value of
$750,000. Not quite as big as a recent bust, thought Garcia Pereda, where they'd stopped 600
bladders from getting across the U.S.-Mexico border, flowing eventually to China.
These swim bladders were large, all from totoaba
bass at least 30 years old. Garcia Pereda, a
representative from PROFEPA, Mexico's version of
the Environmental Protection Agency, knew this
bust was barely a dent in the multibillion-dollar
international black market, robbing Mexico of its
endangered species.

These seized fish bladders are worth

thousands of dollars on the black
market.

Garcia Pereda leaned down to snap another

picture, wondering how Chinese buyers could pay
so much for an irrelevant part of a fish. Most of all,
he wondered even with all the efforts by the
Mexican government, the Mexican navy and
international environmental activists, if they could
stop a seemingly insatiable and bizarre appetite for
the dying species' bladder.

The market

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"It's the best of the best. It makes one more beautiful," the shop owner said in Mandarin, holding up a
picture of dried totoaba bladder. "You can oil it or put it in a stew," he continued. The middle-age
seafood shop owner pointed to the picture and said it would cost about $100,000 U.S.
The totoaba's swim bladder is the priciest dried fish item in Sheung Wan, a neighborhood in Hong
Kong. In a cluster of shops on a street commonly known to tourists and locals as Dried Seafood Street,
exotic dried fare sit in giant tubs and glass jars, promising a variety of cures to a number of health
ailments.
Shops have entire sections displaying dozens of types of fish bladders, ranging from $100 U.S. to
thousands of dollars. Chinese culture has long believed fish bladder is rich in collagen, improving skin
texture and maintaining youthful-looking skin.
Few items are as desired as the totoaba bladder,
what one shopkeeper called the "Mercedes-Benz"
of dried fish, referring to its cost. The high price
comes from the tototaba's scarcity. It exists only in
the most northernmost section of the Sea of Cortez
in Mexico, in a quiet reserve called the Gulf of
California. The totoaba is the only fish bladder on
the market that has two unusual-looking tentacles
that stretch the length of the bladder, giving it a
unique and otherworldly appearance.

The totoaba fish bladder is

distinguished by two tentacles.

The totoaba is also endangered, placed on

international endangered species lists since the
1970s. Commercial fishing first took its toll on the
species, and now a new threat ravages the
remaining fish: Chinese demand.

Hong Kong bans the sale of totoaba, because it's an endangered species. Perhaps the Hong Kong
shop owner holding the picture was thinking of the law: Two weeks ago, he said he could sell totoaba.
But on this second visit, he quoted the $100,000 price and urged us to shop elsewhere.
At another store, a merchant pledged totoaba will help ease achy joints and soft tissues. The
recommended way to ingest it? "Soup." The only way to buy it? A lot of money.

The source

The fish bladders are smuggled

through North America toward Asia.

The Russian-made helicopter lifted off the ground

of the Mexican naval base at San Felipe, a fishing
village in Mexico's Baja California. Aboard the
helicopter were nearly a dozen sailors, some
armed with semiautomatic rifles. The chopper
made its way from dusty flatlands to the pristine
blue waters of the Sea of Cortez. Just a few clicks
north of San Felipe, the Colorado River meets the
Gulf of California, where freshwater flows into the
sea.

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It's here, 5,019 square miles of the gulf, that is

home to the totoaba's nursery and spawning
habitat. The Mexican military flies twice a day over
this nursery, patrolling for poachers. Mexico's
government declared this area and 400 miles of
coastline a protected habitat and off-limits to all
fishing.

Helicopters are used to spot evidence

of smugglers in the Gulf of California.
long net in the gulf to trap totoaba.

But money is a more potent draw than the fear of

arrest, with poachers making as much money from
the bladders as they do from cocaine. That pound
for pound profit is why observers dub the totoaba
bladder "aquatic cocaine."
Shortly after taking off, the pilot spots a giant net in
the protected coastline. It's is an illegal totoaba net,
hidden until poachers can drop the 2 kilometer-

Nine sailors, heaving and sweating, pull the heavy net aboard the chopper. The captain of the mission
lifts a corner of the net. "The holes are 12 inches wide," he said. "It's used specifically to fish totoaba
illegally. The head gets stuck, and it suffocates. It's dangerous to the totoaba, but it's also the main killer
of the vaquita."
The vaquita is another, more critically endangered
marine animal. It looks like a small dolphin, its
mouth curling up in a semi-permanent smile. Like
for the totoaba, the Gulf of California is its breeding
ground and nursery. And like the totoaba, this gulf
is the only place in the world where it exists. It also
has the extreme misfortune of being the same size
as the totoaba: Its head fits perfectly in the illegal
nets. The vaquita has no financial value to the
poachers, but as by-catch, it is now on the verge of
extinction.
On April 13, NOAA Fisheries, along with an
international group of scientists, released a report
to Mexico's minister of the environment and natural
resources saying that only 60 vaquitas remain in
the Gulf of California. The scientists say that
number represents a decline of more than 92% since 1997. At this pace, the report says, the vaquita
species will be extinct in five years.

A totoaba that died caught in a

smuggler's net.

The scientists urged Mexico's government to continue with direct action against the poachers so both
the totoaba and vaquita survive. It is a call, for now, that the government is hearing.
In the air, the navy has one airplane and one helicopter launching twice a day.
On the ground, six drug-sniffing dogs, once trained to locate cocaine, now sit at three checkpoints
leading out of the protected area, inspecting 250 cars and 300 people a day.

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On the water, six boats and a larger naval vessel patrol the protected area of the Gulf of California,
both at day and at night, when poachers are most active. All this is part of a national effort costing the
government millions of dollars.
The effort may seem massive, but the lure of the black market carries a financial potency that's proving
difficult to stop.

The fishermen
Jorge Garcia sat on the back of his truck, selling fish filets and shrimp to tourists wandering the
boardwalk in San Felipe. He looked out at the water, disgusted that his two boats are not doing what
Garcia was raised to do: fish big game like totoaba.
"We're being punished," he said. "Young fishermen from out of town are coming in, fishing illegally in
the water, making tons of money."
Garcia, his skin tanned, thickened and coarsely lined from decades on fishing boats, motioned to
himself sitting on the truck. "But I can't fish."
Garica said he's participating in a government program that is paying him to not fish in the protected
vaquita and totoaba sanctuary. The government promised him $3,100 U.S. a month, but he says the
actual payout was closer to $2,000 U.S. One totoaba bladder, Garcia reminded us, would be double
the government's monthly incentive to not fish.
"I understand what the government is doing," said Garica. "But they're not stopping it. The illegal fishing
happens at night. There's too much money involved."
Garcia was baffled when he learned the swim
bladders were being used as an anti-aging product
in Hong Kong, eaten as a soup. Garcia, who grew
up eating totoaba, said, "If it really worked for
beauty, I should be beautiful by now. Instead, look
at me."
The Mexican government knows it has an uphill
climb stopping the illegal fishing.

The fish bladders are thought to

promote health and beauty when
eaten.

PROFEPA's Garcia Pereda, having been a part of

numerous totoaba busts, watched as the sailors
pulled up an illegal net in the vaquita and totoaba
sanctuary. The naval officer told Garcia Pereda
they're still pulling up nine nets a day. Trapped in
this net was a totoaba, probably 20 years old. It
had not been dead long; its swim bladder was still
intact.

"We watch this place 24 hours a day, and it's sad to see that this still happens despite all our efforts," he
said.

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The fishermen pull the bladders, roll them into small packages and move them north. "Like ants,"
Garcia Pereda said. "They move them in small quantities, bit by bit. They're smuggled. They're put on
commercial flights and commercial shipping companies where they make their way into Shanghai,
Hong Kong, often through the United States or Japan."
A San Felipe fisherman has no ties to China, that's clear, said Garcia Pereda. But he wouldn't detail
whether the transnational crime originates with the Mexican cartels. "It's obvious that to get this product
abroad, we're dealing with some sort of organized groups. We just can't say if it's specifically organized
crime."
Garcia Pereda knows from his experience in the Mexican government that there's one rule in dealing
with illegal contraband: "If there's a market for it, there will always be those who will disobey the law."
The most trafficked mammal you've never heard of

The environmentalists
"Ready, go!" Dan Villa, his arms stretched straight above his head, released his grip on the drone
against the night sky.
"Heading to the target," said Roy Sasano, flying the drone out a mile and a half from the Sea Shepherd
vessel.
"Anything yet?" quizzed Villa, peering over Sasano's shoulder at the night-vision camera from the drone.
Water stretched from either side of the camera's frame. Villa is the campaign leader of Operation
Milagro, Spanish for "miracle," the latest mission for environmental activist group Sea Shepherd.
Sea Shepherd is best known globally for its direct
action against Japan's whaling in the Antarctic,
engaging the whaling fleet boldly at sea. It's a level
of direct confrontation rarely seen on the
environmental activist stage, but just one of the
group's many campaigns around the world.
In the Gulf of California, Sea Shepherd is working in
conjunction with the Mexican government to halt
the poaching, often calling the navy for help in
arresting poachers or pulling up giant nets.

The Sea Shepherd is an environmental

group's ship fighting fish bladder
smuggling.

"We see pangas here," Villa said, referring to the

boats the fishermen use. "They cast their nets
illegally where there's no fishing. We motor
towards them, and since they're doing illegal
activities, they always flee." The crew aboard the
Sea Shepherd vessel, dubbed the Farley Mowat,
marks the spot where the drone spots the
fishermen and return at daybreak to retrieve any
net left behind.

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"I see something," said Sasano, the drone getting

closer to the target.
Sasano, a former member of the Canadian navy,
slowed the drone. Get too close, and the fishermen
bolt before the drone's camera can capture and
record what they're doing.

Dan Villa aboard the Sea Shepherd.

The fishermen spot the drone, appear to drop

something over the side of the boat and speed off.

The crew marked the location and continued the

dark hunt. The team spotted six more illegal fishing boats, all which zoomed away.
"I think it's a fight," said Katja Walther, a deckhand on the vessel. "I think it's a battle that we're fighting.
It's just one of those lies that people consume. We're seeing a decline of species here and it's tragic."
Biologist Benjamin Sawicki, also a Sea Shepherd crew member, is one of the few humans who has
seen a vaquita. He was perched on the top of the Farley Mowat when he saw a vaquita's dorsal fin
slowly surface.
"They're so few of them, people's attitudes now locally and sometimes in the conservation world are
that there are not enough animals worth saving. We're not looking at just protecting the vaquita or the
totoaba. If the whole system doesn't work, we're a part of the whole system. Eventually it affects us as
well."
The reality of the poaching for the Sea Shepherd
crew is palpable when they spot a frequent sight:
dead totoaba floating. The Farley Mowat crew
pulled up a partially decomposed totoaba. It had
been cut open.

"On the inside here right behind near the spine is

its swim bladder," said crew member Adam
Conniss. "You can see there's no swim bladder."
Poachers tossed the carcass back into the sea, the
fish without any value after the removal of the swim
bladder.

15 photos: Endangered no more: Animal

species on the rebound

It's quietly infuriating to Villa, who has been with

Sea Shepherd for more than 10 years, on
campaigns around the world. "Every species that
we lose is a blow to the fragile ecosystem that
sustains life on this planet," said Villa. "Every other breath you take comes from the oceans. And if the
oceans die, we die."
CNN's Yuli Yang and Stella Ko contributed to this report.

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