Juvenile eels, also known as glass eels, are at the centre of an organised crime racket across the Caribbean, as CARICOM’s regional security agency warned that illicit traffic threatens both the region’s fragile ecosystems and security networks.
The Caribbean Community (CARICOM) Implementation Agency for Crime and Security (IMPACS) said the trade in glass eels — a transparent, juvenile stage of several eel species known for travelling long distances at sea — is a lucrative enterprise that must be stopped.
At a two-day regional workshop on glass eel trafficking, held at the Joint Regional Communications Centre in Wildey, Nadine Bushell, Assistant Director of Projects at CARICOM IMPACS, said confronting the trade in glass eels is critical to protecting the Caribbean’s natural resources and disrupting the financial networks underpinning other serious crimes.
“The extremely high value of glass eels in the global market has made this a very lucrative commodity that has been set upon by criminal actors who target these low-risk and high-value commodities as they diversify their criminal activities beyond the well-known crimes that law enforcement typically monitor and scrutinise,” Bushell said.
“Organised criminals are evolving, and they are leaving and leveraging gaps in knowledge of natural resources and environmental crime issues to evade detection by our law enforcement officials.”
Eels play a vital role in biodiversity and aquatic ecosystems, serving as a food source in their juvenile stage and acting as predators once fully grown.
Bushell stressed that protecting natural resources is a key step in achieving long-term reductions in crime.
“These environmental crime activities converge with other serious financial organised crimes like narcotics, gun smuggling, trafficking persons, cybersecurity, corruption, and other nefarious activities that put us in the Caribbean at great risk,” she said.
The IMPACS official appealed for regional collaboration and partnerships to combat these crimes.
Bushels said: “This aligns with the principles of mutual security through partnership. A united front against criminality can be forged through close collaboration with member states, development partners, and regional institutions. CARICOM IMPACS remains steadfast in its advocacy for the protection of the Caribbean’s natural resources.”
Dr David Soud of Auxilium Worldwide, which is working in partnership with CARICOM IMPACS and Canada, said that efforts to counter the illicit trade could hinge on an imminent decision in Samarkand, Uzbekistan, on whether all eel species will be listed as endangered under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES).
“We’re talking about markets that move a lot of this product and that are concerned about the impact of a sort of CITES listing of all species of eel on what they’ll be able to achieve if, in fact, the proposal succeeds, and it’s mainly driven by the EU and all eel species, including the American eel, are then listed on CITES,” he said.
“Well, then you’ve got a very different dynamic that’s going to alter the supply chains’ work that starts from the Caribbean and goes to Asia in significant ways, because you’re adding layers of documentation, layers of verification and that sort of thing, and traceability becomes more achievable.”
Dr Soud added that even if the CITES listing goes ahead, criminal networks are highly agile and adaptive.
“They will find a way to make money and launder money, no matter what decision comes out of Uzbekistan. But we need to be prepared to think about how they will go about doing that, how they’ve already been doing that, and what can be done to disrupt those networks and counter those efforts.”
The workshop aims to strengthen regional law enforcement and security networks to more effectively disrupt illicit glass eel trafficking, Dr Soud said.
“It’s an environmental threat, it’s an economic threat, and it’s part of the apparatus of transnational organised crime that threatens not only the Caribbean, but really the entire world. CARICOM IMPACS is uniquely suited to address this challenge in the Caribbean because to disrupt criminal networks, we need well-networked law enforcement and security agencies.”
louriannegraham@barbadosotoday.bb
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