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Following the totoaba trade, from Samarkand to Hong Kong

Vaquitas die in gillnets that are set for another animal, the totoaba. It’s a large fish that lives only in the Gulf of California, and its dried swim bladder sells for huge sums in parts of East Asia. Trading it across borders has been illegal for decades. As long as people keep buying, though, someone will keep setting nets.

In December 2025, the member countries of CITES, the treaty that governs the international wildlife trade, met in Samarkand, Uzbekistan. On 5 December they adopted two decisions on the totoaba. The first asks Mexico to keep full-time patrols in the vaquita’s protected waters, to seize boats and destroy illegal nets, to help fishers switch to vaquita-safe gear, to use intelligence work to break up trafficking networks, and to review its protected zones against the newest survey data. The second is addressed to China and the other destination countries. It asks them to map the networks that organize the trade and to arrest and prosecute the people who run them. All of these countries have to report back at the next Standing Committee meeting. The decisions carry no sanctions, but they put the countries that buy totoaba on the record, and Mexico can’t stop the trade on its own.

Six months later, on 10 June 2026, customs officers at Hong Kong International Airport opened eight cartons declared as frozen fish fillets. The shipment had come from Mexico and was on its way to Vietnam. Mixed in with the fillets were about 149 kg of fresh totoaba swim bladders. Hong Kong valued them at HK$23.8 million, roughly US$3 million. It was the first case of the year there, and the investigation is still open.

Money on that scale pulls organized crime into small fishing towns where most people would rather make a legal living from the sea. Seizures cut into that money, and the CITES decisions now ask the buying countries to go after the networks as well.

Sources

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