Excerpt: “The Justice Department’s Environment and Natural Resources Division, Environmental Crimes Section, unsealed an indictment charging a major seafood distributor and eight of its employees and associates with smuggling, Lacey Act violations and conspiracy to violate the Endangered Species Act, stemming from their trafficking in large volumes of highly imperiled eels. … It has been illegal since 2010 to export European eels out of any European Union country. Despite this ban, the indictment alleges, the defendants conspired to unlawfully smuggle large quantities of live baby European eels out of Europe, to their eel-rearing factory in China. After rearing the baby eels to maturity, defendants’ Chinese facility would then slaughter and process the eels for shipping to the United States, to be sold as sushi products. The indictment alleges that, over a four-year period, the defendants imported approximately 138 ocean containers full of eel meat into the United States, with a market value exceeding $160 million.”
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