India is the world’s third-largest shark catcher. It banned the export of shark fins in 2015, but the illegal trade is still thriving. Shamsheer Yousaf & Monica Jha investigate A worker drags a shark to be weighed at Kochi harbour. Photo: Shamsheer Yousaf Late one August morning in 2018, an official at the Wildlife Crime Control Bureau received samples of what at first glance looked like dried fish, cut into small pieces. An exporter had moved a consignment to a warehouse at the Jawaharlal Nehru Port Trust at Navi Mumbai, India’s largest container port. The official regularly received random samples as part of his routine work. But while examining the samples, which had been declared as “dried cut pieces of stingray skin”, he had a feeling that something was wrong. “Over my years of work, I’ve developed an instinct,” the official said. “I felt that the exporter was attempting to conceal something.” So, along with his colleagues, he went to the port to inspect the consignment, which comprised 200 bags. They opened and emptied the contents of all 200 bags on the floor. There were some pieces of dried fish, similar to the samples. But among these pieces were triangular, distinctly different pieces of dried fish, with a matte texture. “My instinct was right: these were shark fins,” the official recounted. The exporter was in violation of Indian law – the Union government had banned the export of fins of all sharks on February 6 2015. “I advised the customs officials to confiscate the consignment,” the official said. The case was handed over to the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI), India’s premier law-enforcement agency to combat smuggling. It sprang into action, interrogating the exporter and investigating their trade network. Based on the information the agency obtained, it raided the warehouse of the exporter, Global Impex Trading Company, in Mumbai’s Sewri neighbourhood. There, the agency confiscated 3,000kg of dried shark fins. The DRI arrested Sharafat Ali, the proprietor of Global Impex, his brother Hameed Sultan, manager R Ahmed Asik and warehouse manager R Shivaraman. On questioning them, the agency received further information about the company’s operations in Veraval, a fishing harbour in Gujarat known for shark landings. On September 2 a team from the Gujarat branch of the DRI raided a warehouse in Veraval and confiscated another 5,000kg of shark fins. Still, there was more to come. During the investigation, the DRI found out that the exporter had dispatched a container with 4,000kg of shark fins from Chennai, destined for Hong Kong. Following a request from Indian authorities, the container was offloaded in Malaysia and seized on September 4. In a matter of days, nearly 12,000kg of shark fins were seized from one exporter. It was the largest seizure of shark fins since the export ban in 2015 and suggested that despite the ban, an illegal shark fin trade was thriving across India. Shark fin is one of the most expensive fish products in the world. According to a 2015 report of the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organisation, the price of shark fins exported from India increased five-fold between 2000 and 2009, but fell slightly by 2012. The export ban has caused a further price drop, but the fin trade is still profitable. Kannan, a shark meat trader in Chennai, confirmed that this was the case in his city: “They still make good money. That’s why they continue the illegal business despite risks.” India is the third-largest shark catcher in the world. With no domestic market for shark fins, almost all the fins from India end up in the international market. Hong Kong is India’s most important market for the fins. A shark fin smuggled out of India usually ends up in a bowl of soup. Shark fin soup is a delicacy in Chinese cuisine, considered a mark of a host’s wealth and refined taste. Dried fins are soaked in an acetic acid solution, after which the cartilage in them is separated into fin rays, which are noodle-like threads, and cooked to be served in a soup. More than flavours, the fins are known to provide a texture to the soup that is prized among its patrons. This demand for shark fins is frequently cited as one of the significant drivers of shark fishing. A 2006 study in the journal Ecology Letters estimated that up to 73-million sharks are killed every year for the fin trade. A paper published in Nature in January 2021 found that since 1970, the number of oceanic sharks and rays across the world has declined by 71%, owing to a massive spike in fishing pressure. In India, not everyone considers the fin trade a significant threat to sharks. Several marine biologists said India reports fairly low numbers of shark landings and fin exports.