Posted by DD republished from Mexico News Daily
Fish bladders fetch more than cocaine
Trafficking in totoaba swim bladders has been a successful business model since 2014 when organized crime entered the market.
Since then, the illegal fishing of the endemic Gulf of California species of fish has flared, putting not only totoaba on the endangered species list but the threatened vaquita marina, which shows up as bycatch in gillnets.
“They entered the business forcefully, applying their organizational structures and their corrupting influence. [Organized crime] had established networks, routes, contacts, points of sale and padrinos, or sponsors, in official institutions. What was used to traffic drugs was implemented for the totoaba,” explained an unnamed Army chief in an interview with the newspaper Reforma.
The favored route for totoaba swim bladder traffickers is by air, their destination several Asian countries that treasure the organ for its aphrodisiac and healing properties.
The federal environmental agency Profepa revealed in a report that 1.5 kilograms of cocaine have the same selling price as just one kilo of totoaba swim bladder.
“There’s current data that suggests the price of one kilogram [of totoaba swim bladder] on the black market is reaching US $15,000,” said the document.
The Environment Secretariat (Semarnat) has reported that the main modus operandi of traffickers is to camouflage the bladder with other swim bladders, for which the proper trading permits have been authorized.
“The training of police agents isn’t enough, be it at the municipal, state or federal levels. The situation is the same with the Army, Navy and customs personnel: they’re not trained to detect these crimes,” said an environmental official.
The Federal Police and the federal Attorney General’s office in the state of Baja California have often called upon specialists from the Autonomous University of Baja California (UABC) to identify confiscated swim bladders, to determine whether they belonged to the totoaba or the Gulf corvina.
“While corvina swim bladders have a small, horn-like appendix, totoaba ones have a larger one, of almost the same length as the bladder. This appendix is also twisted, like a braid . . . if complete, it can be easily identified,” say UABC specialists.
Trafficking in totoaba swim bladders has been a successful business model since 2014 when organized crime entered the market.
Since then, the illegal fishing of the endemic Gulf of California species of fish has flared, putting not only totoaba on the endangered species list but the threatened vaquita marina, which shows up as bycatch in gillnets.
“They entered the business forcefully, applying their organizational structures and their corrupting influence. [Organized crime] had established networks, routes, contacts, points of sale and padrinos, or sponsors, in official institutions. What was used to traffic drugs was implemented for the totoaba,” explained an unnamed Army chief in an interview with the newspaper Reforma.
The favored route for totoaba swim bladder traffickers is by air, their destination several Asian countries that treasure the organ for its aphrodisiac and healing properties.
The federal environmental agency Profepa revealed in a report that 1.5 kilograms of cocaine have the same selling price as just one kilo of totoaba swim bladder.
“There’s current data that suggests the price of one kilogram [of totoaba swim bladder] on the black market is reaching US $15,000,” said the document.
The Environment Secretariat (Semarnat) has reported that the main modus operandi of traffickers is to camouflage the bladder with other swim bladders, for which the proper trading permits have been authorized.
“The training of police agents isn’t enough, be it at the municipal, state or federal levels. The situation is the same with the Army, Navy and customs personnel: they’re not trained to detect these crimes,” said an environmental official.
The Federal Police and the federal Attorney General’s office in the state of Baja California have often called upon specialists from the Autonomous University of Baja California (UABC) to identify confiscated swim bladders, to determine whether they belonged to the totoaba or the Gulf corvina.
“While corvina swim bladders have a small, horn-like appendix, totoaba ones have a larger one, of almost the same length as the bladder. This appendix is also twisted, like a braid . . . if complete, it can be easily identified,” say UABC specialists.
WTF $15K a Kilo? That shit better make my dick harder than Chinese arithmetic for crying out loud. lol
ReplyDeleteword!!!!!
DeleteLmao cartels are so diverse these days. Truly the success story of unbridled capitalism. Where the best way of getting rid of your competition is killing them.
ReplyDeleteThis has been a big issue now for some time. They claim to be enforcing the ban on gill netting and night fishing more, even the Sea Shepard has been active in the area in regards to the Vaquitas . I was camped on several beaches south of San Felipe , there were dead totoaba carcasses washed up all over, not to mention pangas gill netting all night right off the beach. I routinely read about busts of bladders on the La Zeta. Sick......the cartels are diversified in so many ways including this and human trafficking, all inclusive resorts, every business imaginable and on and on .........the fishermen are so poor they have to do anything to put food on the table , meanwhile , the cops aren't getting paid and the judiciales , the federales etc fought over that 631 kilos of coke until they now think it ended up back in the hands of the cartels. Breaks my heart and its business as usual.
ReplyDelete121 totoaba bladders
ReplyDeleteExcellent foto :
http://zetatijuana.com/2016/03/29/detienen-a-hombre-con-121-buches-de-totoaba/
Illegal poaching totoaba bladders :
ReplyDeleteRegular looking fishermen with pangas out all night
The drug runners now usually use big pangas with double or triple motors and fly across the pond and /or island hop........now they all have radios, sat fones and big guns to go with........sigh.......
http://zetatijuana.com/2016/04/11/pesca-ilegal-de-totoaba-corrupcion-y-simulacion/
What I like about this article is it doesn't say what the fish bladders are used for, so my imagination is running wild...little purses for hamsters?
ReplyDelete@Ja ck. You need to read the article before your imagination runs too far. The article states "several Asian countries that treasure the organ for its aphrodisiac and healing properties."
DeleteYou can also use fish bladders in the making of beer when it comes to a filtration process which is mostly used in microbreweries.
DeleteYep "ancient Chinese wisdom" Right ! these little pricks will eat anything and imagine its "enhancing" them somehow . A place in texas , a few years back , got busted for several hundred bottles of vodka with a baby rattlesnake in each one . He was selling to the Chinese . Sent a Asian undercover in and got him . Selling alcohol w/o a license was all they got him for . Think about these dumb dumbs , powdered rhinoceros horn ?
DeleteThe Numbers Man
DD: Oh no I missed that! I still think my idea is better though.
DeleteBB, was this the article you were talking about?
ReplyDeleteThe diversion of water from the Colorado River within the United States leaves little or no fresh water to reach the delta, greatly altering the environment in the delta, and the salinity of the upper Sea of Cortez. The flow of fresh water to the mouth of the Colorado since the completion of the Hoover and Glen Canyon dams has been only about 4% of the average flow during the period from 1910 to 1920. This is considered to be a major cause of the depletion of the totoaba.
ReplyDeleteThank you America.
BTW, Acapulco has had a ban on Oysters since November. There used to be shellfish, fish not anymore. However, there has been a lot of decapitated bodies washing up on shore. !Viva La Mexico!
ReplyDeleteOperation Milagros 2
ReplyDeleteTo save the Vaquitas and Totoabas
http://www.seashepherd.org/milagro2/about-campaign/about-the-campaign.html
Ridiculous,dudes thinking eating all kinds of shit like this will help them get a hard on ? Putting species at risk to get a hard on ? No evidence whatsoever that any of this works ? Maybe if they kept in shape and stopped eating all kinds of fatty shit,they wouldnt need these ridiculous fallacies ? Eat a fish bladder and get a raging hard on,you couldnt make this shit up ?
ReplyDeletebut it is pretty specific as far as the species and for which ailment it addresses, how this works is pretty straight forward, Eastern medicine has been around for many thousands of years, and western medicine is relatively new in retrospect, and modern western medicine has borrowed heavily from eastern pharma culture, as far as techiques and chemicals so,I am positive there are many other remedies also.. I'm sure there may be some truth to it, although I haven't tried this myself, if it actually does work then I guess if people are able to obtain what they are after, nature is usually what suffers.
DeleteYeah no kidding 1:42.Maybe they need some education on what works and what doesn't and quit buying into scams before many many endangered species are gone for good due to the Chinese and their multitudes of superstitious people.
ReplyDeleteAll I need is think about el Sol Peyido and voilá all over again, and I am 68 years old.
ReplyDeleteI am positive that the source of this market or the request for this was probably set up by wherever/ or whomever has the networks for the chemicals that are coming into mex. from asia
ReplyDeletethanks for post
ReplyDelete