This Monday, 4 May, seventeen individuals were sentenced at the Bordeaux Criminal Court for their  involvement in an international eel trafficking operation. The trial is the latest in a string of glass eel trafficking cases and underlines the scale of movements into and out of Europe. As of 2025, Europol values the East Asian trade in the European eel, A. anguilla, at several billion euros per year.

During the hearing, the defendants questioned the seriousness of their crimes, arguing that glass eel trafficking was ‘not drug trafficking’, and in that sense unlikely to present significant welfare and safeguarding challenges. France Nature Environnement, which joined the proceedings as a civil party, took a different view, arguing that that the threat to the survival of the species was exceptional, and that the impact on the eel stock would affect all stakeholders in freshwater, including legitimate fishers.

The coordinators of the operation received prison sentences ranging from two to five years, whilst individuals involved at the operational level received suspended sentences of eighteen months. In addition to the sentences, the civil society organisations involved in the hearing were awarded damages of €552,000, including €450,000 for environmental damage; and €1,000,000 fines were issued.

Their trafficking network was complex and far-reaching, extending from Portugal to China via Vietnam and France. Over the course of three months, the traffickers moved approximately 2.4 million glass eels, equivalent to about 800kg, making particular use of the ports of Nantes and Saint-Nazire. The case was only brought to enforcement officers’ attention in 2019, however, when a network member was found transporting 68kg of glass eels in a taxi. At that time, a search was organised for the towns where the taxi was headed, which included Culin and Isère, and holding tanks were found soon afterwards, ready and waiting for the cargo to arrive. The subsequently investigation resulted in the identification and arrest of the major figures in the network, many of whom appeared at the recent Bordeaux trial.

In recent years, wildlife traffickers have adopted increasingly sophisticated approaches to glass eel poaching, storage, and distribution. This has allowed it to persist in the context of a more coordinated and efficient enforcement context, in which wildlife crime is taken increasingly seriously. More collaborative approaches are required to expose weak links in the supply chain, and there have been positive developments in various European Union countries, including France.

For the Sustainable Eel Group, these developments are significant, partly because they highlight the importance of collaborating with law enforcement authorities to close the grey area between the legal and illegal trade, but also because they demonstrate the importance of certification and traceability systems such as the SEG Standard. If fishers and traders worked to a consistent standard and could guarantee the legality of their product from the fishery to the consumer, this would reduce the incidence of illegality in the west of France and encourage a positive dialogue between stakeholders in the sector, government, and conservation.