US Customs and Border Protection seizes USD 2.7 million in smuggled totoaba swim bladders

U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officers have seized totoaba swim bladders worth an estimated USD 2.7 million (EUR 2.46 million) in the second-largest seizure of its type in CBP history. 

The CBP seized 270 swim bladders, weighing 242 pounds in total, at the Area Port of Nogales in the U.S. state of Arizona. Totoaba is considered an endangered species by the U.S. government under the Enddangered Species Act and is listed on both the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES). CBP said that both the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and Homeland Security Investigations are working to find the perpetrators. 

“Our officers and agriculture specialists enforce a wide variety of laws on behalf of numerous agencies,” CBP Tucson Field Office Director of Field Operations Guadalupe Ramirez said in a release. “This find by our CBP officers ... is an exceptional example of the job they do enforcing laws regarding all commodities entering the United States. It’s also an excellent example of our working relationship with our U.S. Fish and Wildlife partners, enforcing the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species treaty agreement.” 

The swim bladders were concealed within a commercial shipment of frozen fish fillets, according to a CBP press release. DNA testing by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service determined that the bladders belong to Totoaba macdonaldi, a species endemic to the Gulf of California.

Totoaba has been listed as an endangered species by the U.S. government since 1979. The swim bladders of the species fetch high prices on the black market in China, as they are believed to have health benefits when eaten. The bladders are also similar to the swim bladders of the bahaba – or yellow croaker – another critically endangered species.

Totoaba is also mainly poached using gillnets that cause conflicts with another critically endangered species, the vaquita. With less than 20 individuals remaining in the wild, vaquita can get caught in the illegal gillnets and drown.

CITES briefly sanctioned Mexico earlier this year for its failure to stomp out illegal fishing for totoaba. CITES later lifted the sanctions after Mexico's government created a plan to protect the critically endangered vaquita and the totoaba from illegal fishing, but the U.S. government is still considering sanctions against Mexico for its failure to protect the vaquita and totoaba. 

Photo courtesy of U.S. Customs and Border Protection