Jonathan Garcia Pereda snapped a photo, the contraband glowing white in his smartphone. Mexican federal police had stopped a 28-year-old man from San Felipe at a checkpoint, discovering black plastic bags balled up in the tires. It appeared to be another familiar bust to the Mexican police, until they cut open the bags.
One hundred twenty-one fish swim bladders lay before Garcia Pereda on the concrete floor, most of them white, some with shades of pink. The smell of fish guts was overwhelming, a stench Garcia Pereda never grew accustomed to, even as he went from bust after bust of the illegal smuggling. This was a huge haul of “aquatic cocaine”: 39 kilos of totoaba fish swim bladders, with a Hong Kong street value of $750,000. Not quite as big as a recent bust, thought Garcia Pereda, where they’d stopped 600 bladders from getting across the U.S.-Mexico border, flowing eventually to China.
These swim bladders were large, all from totoaba bass at least 30 years old. Garcia Pereda, a representative from PROFEPA, Mexico’s version of the Environmental Protection Agency, knew this bust was barely a dent in the multibillion-dollar international black market, robbing Mexico of its endangered species.
Garcia Pereda leaned down to snap another picture, wondering how Chinese buyers could pay so much for an irrelevant part of a fish. Most of all, he wondered even with all the efforts by the Mexican government, the Mexican navy and international environmental activists, if they could stop a seemingly insatiable and bizarre appetite for the dying species’ bladder.
“It’s the best of the best. It makes one more beautiful,” the shop owner said in Mandarin, holding up a picture of dried totoaba bladder. “You can oil it or put it in a stew,” he continued.
The middle-age seafood shop owner pointed to the picture and said it would cost about $100,000 U.S.
The totoaba’s swim bladder is the priciest dried fish item in Sheung Wan, a neighborhood in Hong Kong. In a cluster of shops on a street commonly known to tourists and locals as Dried Seafood Street, exotic dried fare sit in giant tubs and glass jars, promising a variety of cures to a number of health ailments.
Shops have entire sections displaying dozens of types of fish bladders, ranging from $100 U.S. to thousands of dollars. Chinese culture has long believed fish bladder is rich in collagen, improving skin texture and maintaining youthful-looking skin.
Few items are as desired as the totoaba bladder, what one shopkeeper called the “Mercedes-Benz” of dried fish, referring to its cost. The high price comes from the tototaba’s scarcity. It exists only in the most northernmost section of the Sea of Cortez in Mexico, in a quiet reserve called the Gulf of California.
The totoaba is the only fish bladder on the market that has two unusual-looking tentacles that stretch the length of the bladder, giving it a unique and otherworldly appearance.
The totoaba is also endangered, placed on international endangered species lists since the 1970s. Commercial fishing first took its toll on the species, and now a new threat ravages the remaining fish: Chinese demand.
Hong Kong bans the sale of totoaba, because it’s an endangered species.
Perhaps the Hong Kong shop owner holding the picture was thinking of the law: Two weeks ago, he said he could sell totoaba. But on this second visit, he quoted the $100,000 price and urged us to shop elsewhere.
At another store, a merchant pledged totoaba will help ease achy joints and soft tissues. The recommended way to ingest it? “Soup.” The only way to buy it? A lot of money.
2016 Cable News Network. Turner Broadcasting System, Inc.