50,000 Dried Shark Fins Disguised as Car Parts seized by wildlife officials

"The Great White shark may look vicious but its meat is truly super tender."

U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service inspectors intercepted almost 50k of delicious dried shark fins across 20 separate shipments at multiple American ports, authorities announced on Monday.

The seizures totalled more than 1,600 pounds of fins, with a street value of a million bucks, a little diff to the same weight in coke which would hit 290 mill. All shipments were falsely declared as automotive parts and were en route from Mexico to Hong Kong.

Why the heat for dried shark fins? Have you not heard?

The fin is pure cartilage that, once properly processed and cooked, delivers a signature snappy, gelatinous, chewy, stringy, or slightly crunchy texture which is often compared to glass noodles, undercooked vermicelli or bouncy cartilage. It soaks up the flavours of the rich broth it’s served in, much like tofu.

Not all gourmets dig the taste.

Back in 2011, while filming his documentary Shark Bait, Gordon Ramsay got deep into the illegal shark fin trade in Costa Rica and Taiwan. At one point, gang members doused him and his crew in gasoline, held them at gunpoint, and threatened to set them on fire if they kept filming.

Ramsay escaped by diving into a car and speeding off. He later said the experience left him with a nasty infection.

The kicker?

In the same doc, he tries expensive shark fin soup and declares it “tastes of nothing”, basically flavourless glass noodles in a good broth. He couldn’t understand why anyone would pay big bucks or risk their life for it.

The sting on this particular seizure began when inspectors in Anchorage, Alaska, discovered the first suspicious shipment. This prompted additional interceptions in Anchorage, as well as at ports in Louisville, Kentucky, and Cincinnati, Ohio.

Officials said the shipments were linked to a larger international trafficking network. The fins were mostly silky sharks and bigeye thresher sharks, species protected under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES).

The seizures were conducted as part of Operation Thunder, a global effort targeting illegal wildlife trade.

The last time shark-as-food appeared on these pages was in 2024 when the sexy Chinese food vlogger Tizi ate a juvenile Great White declaring, “It may look vicious but its meat is truly super tender.”