Some 1.5 metric tons of shark fins were seized in a Brazilian operation in February. Photo: Brazilian Federal Police
Authorities in Brazil arrested seven people last month in connection with a shark finning operation. During the raid on February 12, they seized 1.5 tons of shark fins — about 3,300 pounds — from a rural processing site in Rodelas, Bahia State.
Shark finning is not a good practice. It’s likely that most of the fins seized came from Atlantic nurse sharks and blue sharks, both of which are not doing well when it comes to population numbers. Finning is a particularly awful thing, but due to the demand for shark-fin soup, which is considered a luxury dish in many Chinese and Southeast Asian cultures that apparently symbolizes wealth and status, there’s a market for shark fins.
“[Shark finning] is extremely cruel, because the fins are torn off, the animals are mutilated alive and thrown back into the sea so they don’t take up space on the vessel, since these criminals are interested only in the fins,” federal police agent Micael Andrade, told the Brazilian outlet Globo. “The animal is discarded and agonizes and dies. Because it cannot move, it sinks. It cannot feed itself. It really is an extremely cruel practice.”
According to reports, the suspects were working for a Chinese-run syndicate. There were seven of them, three of whom were Chinese nationals. One of the people arrested was a teenager. They will be charged with crimes against wildlife, receiving stolen goods and corruption of a minor.
“It became clear that only the Chinese men were in fact part of the international shark fin trading network,” Andrade explained. “They [the four Brazilian suspects] were poor workers earning daily wages to make some money. They did not even know how the entire operation worked, nor the origin or destination of the fins.”
This is far from the first time something like this has happened. Back in early summer of 2023, Brazilian authorities found 28 metric tons of shark fins, which was thought to be the largest seizure ever. Three years prior, Hong Kong officials found 28 metric tons.
Shark finning, as you’d expect, is illegal in most places including Brazil. There is a bit of a loophole, though — if the shark is caught accidentally as bycatch and it’s brought in, the fins are allowed to be sold. But targeting sharks for their fins is most definitely illegal, and when the evidence includes over 3,000 pounds of fins, it seems fairly obvious that they didn’t come from accidental bycatch.
