A Hong Kong court has sentenced a woman to one year in jail for illegally importing shark fins from endangered species from Brazil last year. The woman, 39, was found to have over 450 kilograms of dried fins in her baggage when she arrived in Hong Kong from Brazil via Ethiopia last November, according to a government statement on Monday. Officers of the Agriculture, Fisheries and Conservation Department (AFCD) seized the dried fins and found that about 100 kilograms of them were from endangered species such as silky sharks, oceanic whitetip sharks and hammerhead sharks.
The dried fins were valued at about HK$440,000. The other dried fins were also from species protected under an international treaty that regulates the trade of such endangered animals, a AFCD spokesperson said in the statement. In Hong Kong, the import and export of animal products of endangered species is regulated by a licensing system.
Anyone who imports, exports or possesses such products illegally is liable to a fine of up to HK$10 million fine and up to 10 years in jail. The District Court on Monday set an 18-month jail term as a starting point, reducing it to 12 months given the woman’s guilty plea. The AFCD spokesperson added that new shark species had been included in the list of protected species under the international convention and urged residents to observe the law.
Hong Kong is one of the largest shark fin trade hubs in the world, with shark fin soup a popular dish served during banquets. Last October, requiem shark and the hammerhead shark families were added to the city’s list of endangered species. Sharks’ fins are sliced from their bodies before they are thrown back into the sea, where they suffer a slow death.
Marine experts have said that the majority of sharks fin consumed in Hong Kong came from blue sharks, which are part of the requiem shark family, according to an AFP report . In July, a 36-year-old man who was arrested last November for bringing endangered shark fins into the city – also from Brazil via Ethiopia – was jailed for one year for the same offence. Criminals have increasingly mixed unregulated specimens with regulated ones to make detection more difficult, the AFCD spokesperson said on Monday, adding that the department would work with customs to combat such illegal activities.
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