The Black Market in Bluefin

The black market in bluefin

OVERVIEW: How a runaway fishing industry looted the seas of tuna.

ICIJ exposed faulty paper-based tracking method

Fishing nations approve overhaul of bluefin tuna tracking system

Nearly 50 countries that trade in high-priced Eastern Atlantic Bluefin Tuna voted Saturday to transform an archaic paper-based system into an electronic fish-tracking database that will make it harder for fleets to smuggle plundered bluefin into market, after ICIJ in 2010 exposed the faulty paper-based tracking method.

Trade oversight

Threatened bluefin tuna may not get much help from international conference

Rejecting the tough stance of its top fisheries official, the European Union agreed Thursday to recommend similar catch limits as last year for the depleted stocks of Eastern Atlantic Bluefin Tuna.

Accountability

French officials finally respond to allegations of doctored data

Forty-eight days after ICIJ sent its first interview request to the ministry, officials finally responded Monday to allegations that for years leading up to 2008, the ministry downplayed the final catch figures of the nation’s bluefin tuna fishing fleet before reporting those figures to the European Commission.

Part III

Bluefin, Inc.

For decades Japan has been the final stop of an Eastern Atlantic bluefin tuna supply chain riddled with fraud, criminal misconduct, and lack of oversight.

Diving into the tuna ranching industry

Sea "farms", where bluefin are fattened to increase their value, have become centers for the bluefin black market in the Mediterranean and North Africa.

Part I

A Mediterranean feeding frenzy

How overfishing, rampant cheating, and official complicity plundered the Atlantic Bluefin Tuna.

Our methodology, data analysis, and team

About This Project: Looting the Seas I

Looting the Seas is a two-year project looking at the forces that are rapidly depleting the oceans of fish. ICIJ’s initial investigation focuses on the prized Eastern Atlantic Bluefin Tuna, a sushi delicacy served in restaurants worldwide.

Key Findings

Between 1998 and 2007, more than one in three bluefin was caught illegally, creating an off-the-books trade conservatively valued at $4 billion.
Fishermen blatantly violated official quotas and engaged in an array of illegal practices, including misreporting catch size, hiring banned spotter planes, catching undersized fish, trading fishing quotas, and plundering tuna from North African waters where EU inspectors are refused entry.
National fisheries officials have colluded with the bluefin tuna industry to doctor catch numbers and avoid international criticism.
Sea ranches, where bluefin are fattened to increase their value, became the epicenter for “laundering” tuna in the Mediterranean and North Africa.
The paper-based reporting system implemented by regulators in 2008 to bring transparency to the trade is full of holes, rendering the data almost useless.
A widespread, off-the-books trade in bluefin tuna has existed in Japan since at least the mid-1980s.
While there are signs that EU officials have started to crack down, illegalities remain a serious problem. In North Africa and Turkey, even less accountable fleets are ramping up operations.
A wall of secrecy protects the bluefin industry. Officials in countries from Spain to Croatia failed to produce records on fishing and farming infringements. Even the European Commission denied access to fishery infraction records, citing protection of commercial interests and even “military matters."