In short
The global, high-value trade in live baby eels (“elvers”/“glass eels”), worth billions, and how endangered European eels are caught, shipped, and allegedly diverted into illegal markets.
Guests / key people
- Shane Beard: UK elver fisherman from a multi-generation “Elverman” family; catches elvers on the River Severn and sells via the UK’s Elver Station.
- Peter Wood: CEO of UK Glass Eels; has shipped glass eels worldwide for 50+ years, including conservation “stocking” projects.
- Florian Stein: researcher for the German Angling Association; studied eel trafficking and explains eel life cycle and smuggling methods.
- Pavel Zastrzyski: Polish investigative journalist; investigates shipments near the Kaliningrad border and a Polish eel-farming network.
- Marvin Del Cid: Dominican Republic photojournalist; documents glass- eel fishing controlled by a middleman.
- Jean Baptiste Bo-Homme: exporter of glass eels to Hong Kong (describes the trade and risks).
- Ilya Shumanov: Russian journalist; investigates whether Kaliningrad “restocking” is actually commercial.
Key claims + examples
- EU export ban (2010) and Brexit cut legal supply, enabling suitcase smuggling; police estimate up to 100 tonnes/year and ~€3bn.
- Eels are transported live in small quantities (about 3,000 per kg) and can be moved quickly.
- Poland/Kaliningrad deliveries: official paperwork says “release into natural environment,” but investigators suspect diversion; a computer hard drive allegedly shows links.
- Kaliningrad project: UK shipments to Russian lagoons (Vistula/Koronian) are presented as conservation, but investigators cite bank-transfer timing and subsidies vs payments suggesting commercial “deal” activity.
- Caribbean examples: Dominican Republic boom (post-2017) with cash payments and violent clashes; Haiti exports rising (10 tonnes in 2021 to 100 tonnes in 2022) amid gang control and weak enforcement.
Written by AI. May contain mistakes. Listen to the episode to check what was said.
Chapters
Tap a time to open that second in VOShane Beard: The Elver Fisherman
2:55 to 6:20
Join Shane Beard as he prepares to catch elvers, revealing the fishing techniques passed down through generations.
“we're going to take you into this world.”
The Elver Station and Glass Eels
6:20 to 10:19
Explore the Elver Station's role in the glass eel industry and the challenges faced in managing their populations.
“A couple of weeks later, Shane is back at the river.”
Peter Wood and Eel Conservation Efforts
10:19 to 14:03
Learn about Peter Wood's company and the international trade of baby eels for conservation and commercial purposes.
“Because numbers were plummeting, the European Union banned all imports and exports of live eels from member countries.”
Mysteries of Glass Eels
14:03 to 15:02
Explore the rumors surrounding the journey and fate of glass eels.
“But what if this wasn't their final destination?”
The Life Cycle of Eels
15:02 to 17:48
Understand the unique life cycle of eels from the Sargasso Sea to Europe.
“But first, you need to understand what Shane means by a black market for glass eels.”
Eel Trafficking Dynamics
17:48 to 19:39
Learn how eel trafficking has evolved with changing markets and regulations.
“And this means that if you're going to grow eels in a fish farm, you need to start with live glass eels that were caught in the wild.”
The Scale of Smuggling Operations
19:39 to 21:08
Dive into the staggering scale of illegal glass eel smuggling in Europe.
“It creates the perfect conditions for an illegal trade to flourish.”
Investigative Journalism on Eel Trade
21:08 to 21:56
Follow journalist Pavel Zastrzyski's investigation into illegal eel shipments.
“A lot of eels traded for legal purpose, restocking or farming.”
Tracking the Eel Shipment
21:56 to 25:35
Witness the details of tracking a suspicious eel shipment and its implications.
“That company didn't stop because of Brexit.”
The Final Moments of the Investigation
27:40 to 28:00
Capture the climax of Pavel's investigation as he tracks the eel shipment.
“Puerto Rico is having a moment of global attention.”
Show all 23 chapters
Pavel's Discovery of Eel Smuggling
28:14 to 30:43
Learn about Pavel's investigative journey into the eel trade.
“Then he sees a van pull up, right there, on the runway, and boxes of eels are unloaded from the plane.”
Meeting the Middleman
30:43 to 33:00
Pavel meets a source who provides insights into the eel business.
“So you went into the house and he's there in person?”
The Eel Trade Explained
33:00 to 34:28
Understand the dynamics of the illegal eel trade and its profitability.
“We're going to be served here with some green apples, a condiment of licorice and a sauce of roasted butter with some leaves of oxalis on the top.”
Eel Fishing in the Dominican Republic
34:28 to 39:03
Explore the rise of eel fishing and the implications for local fishermen.
“I don't make money from cheating people, gambling or making people lose their savings.”
Challenges Faced by Fishermen
39:03 to 42:08
Learn about the struggles of fishermen in Haiti and their protests.
“Across the border in Haiti, it's a similar story.”
Fishermen's Frustration in Haiti
42:08 to 43:13
Explore the challenges faced by fishermen in Haiti regarding glass eel pricing and their grievances.
“So sometimes the price went up or it went down.”
Pawel's Data Discovery
43:27 to 44:29
Pawel recovers crucial data revealing the inner workings of a Polish eel farm, indicating suspicious operations.
“The full hard drive of the computer has been recovered and he gets his hands on over 40 gigabytes of data.”
Uncovering Dark Connections
44:32 to 46:23
Pawel discovers links between the eel farm and illicit activities, including tobacco trade and potential smuggling.
“And there's this huge amount, just a look, this is 20 tonnes.”
Eel Farming Controversy
46:29 to 47:37
The potential commercial motives behind Professor Krustalev's projects in Russia raise questions about conservation efforts.
“We're not the only ones questioning Peter Wood's glass eel exports to Russia.”
Investigating Goodfish's Intentions
47:38 to 49:32
Pawel teams up with Russian journalist Ilya to investigate Goodfish's operations and their true motives.
“This is a non-commercial project co-funded between industry and the state.”
Financial Ties and Questions
49:36 to 52:11
Ilya reveals financial records suggesting questionable payments between Goodfish and Peter Wood, raising ethical concerns.
“This is a commercial company and the logic of the commercial activity is gaining money.”
Pawel's Reflection in Nature
52:12 to 53:35
Pawel contemplates the implications of their discoveries while taking a break in the mountains, feeling a mix of fear and clarity.
“Pavel needs a breather so we jump in the car and head to the mountains near his house From this point you've got incredible view, landscape for all mountains, huge one, big one green one, beautiful place but not now.”
Responses from Peter Wood and Goodfish
54:06 to 54:48
Peter Wood and Goodfish respond to allegations, asserting compliance with regulations and focusing on conservation efforts.
“We put these findings to Peter Wood, who told us that all the payments from Good Fish were for UK eels, delivered to Russia for restocking, and were fully compliant with UK regulations.”
Transcript
Automatic transcript. May contain errors.0:00This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK.
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1:11It's midday on the 3rd of October, 2024, and a plane has just crashed in a forest in Haiti. Tall green banana plants surround a mangled wreckage, a pile of white and yellow metal shards. It's barely recognisable as an aircraft. A crowd of people has gathered and yellow tape has been tied around the site to keep them back. There's firefighters, police and safety workers in orange high-vis jackets and helmets. There's also men wearing camouflage, black balaclavas and carrying guns.
1:50Journalists are filming the scene. This reporter tells his viewers that two people are believed to have been on the plane. It wasn't a commercial flight, he says. It was a small, private plane. And on board this plane was zongi. Eels. You can see hundreds of tiny, worm-like creatures scattered across the wreckage. They're all about four centimetres long and pale in colour, almost translucent. Some are still moving, wriggling and flipping around. It seems they were being transported live.
2:37This private plane, full of live baby eels, is part of a multi-billion dollar global trade. Baby eels have become one of the most trafficked creatures in the world. For this episode of the documentary from the BBC World Service, we're going to take you into this world. A co-production from BBC Eye and Doc Days. This is Billion Dollar Babies. I'm Rob Wilson.
3:16Late in the evening, when most other people are going to bed, Shane Beard is doing the opposite. He's loading up his van with fishing equipment, ready for a night on the river.
3:30He's packing a long metal pole with a large, rectangular, fine mesh net on the end. He's in Gloucester, in the UK, in March, so it's cold and dark.
3:50Carefully, he approaches the banks of the River Severn. You see this? This is what we need to be careful of. So you've got big logs that come down the stream, and sometimes they come in real close to the bank. They'll knock you off your feet or take your nettoe off your feet. It's a river known for its tidal swell, which is exactly what Shane wants. Because what they do, before the tide comes, they bury themselves in the mud and the sand, and then when the tide comes, it lifts them up like the sand and the mud, and that's when they start swimming then. He's talking about elvers, or baby eels. So there's alvers there, look.
4:27See them running down the net? Only in spring each year do elvers arrive at the mouth of this river in their millions, and they swim up it on the tides. For generations, fishermen like Shane have been there with their nets to catch them. On a good night, a dip of the net might catch 20 or 30 elvers every couple of minutes. But tonight is slow. I think we could have done with the tide being a bit bigger. We've had a couple of dips of four or five, and then one dip of ten.
5:01hello yeah on my last dip I just had 10 alvers so first deals of the season
5:17no just nice to catch a couple okay I'll ring you later All right, bye then, bye. Bye. Shane comes from a long line of Elverman, and tonight he's got his own son with him because he wants to pass on his knowledge. What's that one going to be called? Don't know. Look, and this one, this one's bright red, see him? And this one's white, completely clear. You see how red he is? Do you know what that means? He's real fresh. Well, you see this one here, he's black. that means he's been eating. All right? All right, stay there then. Daddy will put them back. OK? It's been in a family tradition for many years.
6:02You know, my granddad used to fish. My granddad's granddad used to fish. My dad, my uncle. I like to take my boy out so he can experience things that I've experienced and sort of keep it in family generation. You know, it is one amazing sport.
6:24A couple of weeks later, Shane is back at the river. And this time, the tide is exactly what he's looking for. He's massive. That tide's massive. Is it? He's here. He's got head on him. Bloody hell, man. He's whipping through to her. That's unbelievable, isn't it? Yeah. All right, I've got to go down and get wet now. He's probably got three or four heads on him. It gives you a buzz, yeah. Because, you know, you're like, whoa, here they come. Are they going to swim now? You know, it's always one of those things, like, you do get excited. And the elvers are swimming tonight. There's loads at the top.
7:03So it should start getting better and better now. Dip after dip, Shane catches 20 or 30 of the baby eels. Did you see how many that was? For two hours, Shane collects the elvers from each dip in a bucket. He catches hundreds of them. And he's collecting them because he's going to sell them. Yeah, so there's probably a couple of kilos of Alvers there, which if there is a couple of kilos of Alvers, there'd be£300 worth, which isn't bad for two and a half hours. It's been hard work to catch those Alvers. There's only one place in the UK where Shane is allowed to sell them. It's called the Elver Station.
7:41I'll make my way into the Elver Station now, weigh these Alvers in, and that'll be me home to bed and work in the morning. I should imagine on a busy night, they're probably within the region of 80 to 120 different fishermen that go through the Elver Station on a good night.
8:08The Elver Station is a dark green warehouse with a simple sign on the outside that reads UK Glass Eels. Glaceals is the industry term for these tiny fish, given because of their translucent colour. The warehouse is filled with large black water tanks, where the glacials are collected in their hundreds of thousands and kept alive. My name is Peter Wood. I'm the chief executive of the Glaceal Company. This is a company that's been sending baby eels all over the world for more than 50 years. Peter Wood is in his 70s. He's got short grey hair and a grey goatee beard. He says that the business started out selling glass eels to projects that would release them into the wild to repopulate lakes and rivers.
8:59Our core business has always been stocking. Stocking or restocking is the industry term for this. It's important because European eels are highly endangered. Their numbers have declined by about 95%. Stocks of eels have been depleted. So to speed up and enhance the recovery process, the idea is to take glass eels from one area where they're plentiful, like they are in the UK, and then translocate them and stock a water that's depleted. Peter says he's been selling glass eels to projects like this across Europe since the 1970s. In East Germany, in Poland, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, in Estonia, Lithuania, all these projects were forward-looking environmental projects.
9:53Peter also made money by selling glass eels to stock fish farms in China because eel farming has boomed there over the last 40 years. We were the first company into China to export baby eels, so that gave us a good start. And this was a very successful business. We certainly punched above our weight in terms of making exports. But in 2010, things started to change for UK glass eels. Because numbers were plummeting, the European Union banned all imports and exports of live eels from member countries. Peter's exports to Asia were cut off. And then, 10 years later, the UK left the EU. I mean, there's been some major difficulties like Brexit.
10:39I mean, that has destroyed our markets in Europe and we're now desperately trying to find alternative markets in other parts of the world. The new market that Peter found for his company was the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad. It's a small piece of Russian territory by the Baltic Sea, bordering Poland and Lithuania, and it has two coastal lagoons. This is the Vistula Lagoon and the Koronian Lagoon. The Russians have a really forward-looking stocking programme for these lakes. It is a fantastic project. This will be probably one of the largest projects to support the recovery of the European eel in Northern Europe.
11:24They have a very well-developed eel management plan. It is a huge project. This is a video from October 2022. It says it's the first batch of eels being released into the Vistula Lagoon. It's on the channel of a Russian company called Goodfish, which runs the programme. The Kaliningrad governor is part of a small group of people who board a black and white boat and head to the middle of the lagoon. There's a man in a red jacket who slashes a clear plastic bag full of water and fish that look like eels. They slip down a metal slide into the lagoon. The governor then takes his turn to do the same.
12:10One and a half years later, in April 2024, Peter's employees are busy in the warehouse in the UK, preparing their own shipment of glass eels to Kaliningrad. Thousands of the tiny, translucent, wriggling fish are scooped up and packed in polystyrene trays. At least 100 of them are stacked up. In total, the shipment is 500 kilograms of glass eels. Peter is in his office, speaking to some of his team. This is a very special day for us, a very special night for us. I mean, I think everybody realises that if we don't do this shipment, then that's the end of the company. It's a very complex and demanding task.
12:55And on top of this, we have a very difficult political situation. Yes. Russia does not permit any Western aircraft into their airspace at the moment. So there is a special dispensation for our delivery.
13:19The boxes of Eels are then taken to a nearby airfield and loaded onto Peter Wood's private plane. It's a small white aircraft with red and blue stripes running along the side and its name printed in black capital letters at the back. G-EELS
13:51The shipment goes off without a hitch. It all sounds above board. Eels sent to a conservation project in Russia.
14:03But what if this wasn't their final destination? Shane, the fisherman, well, he says he's heard rumours. There's loads of different rumours, you know, There's rumours that they go to Ukraine, Russia, Japan. There's rumours that they go on the black market, be exported. But then there's rumours, obviously, that they get restocked into commercial fisheries. There's rumours that they go for food consumption. There's only certain people know the truth of where they go and what's being done with them. And, you know, I think the fishermen would like to know where they go. But that, we never know.
15:01I'm going to come back to Peter Woods. But first, you need to understand what Shane means by a black market for glass eels.
15:13Hi, Florian. Hi, third floor. Third floor, great, thank you. My name is Florian Stein and I'm a researcher working for the German Angling Association. Before that, I spent almost 10 years most exclusively on eel and about six years on eel trafficking. Florian explains that eels have a unique life cycle that underpins this whole story. So we know that, or we believe, that all the eels in Europe come from the Sargasso Sea, which is an area, a vast sea area north of the Caribbean. It's in this part of the ocean, the Sargasso Sea, where scientists believe eels mate and then their babies hatch. The tiny eels then start an epic journey.
16:01They are transported with a ghost stream towards Europe and they grow a bit bigger on the way. They develop into so-called glass eels. The glass eels are translucent and when they enter the freshwater, they pigment. So they get a darker colour, like the grown eels. It's these glass eels that enter the freshwater rivers and lakes in Europe. And they might be caught by people like Shane. But many aren't caught and these eels will spend years living in their new home where they start feeding. When they feed, they turn yellowish, greenish and they're called yellow eels. They have a feeding period of between 8 and 30 years.
16:44But eels can be much older. They can grow 100 years and older. Then something extraordinary happens. After that long feeding period, there comes a time when they start migrating downstream again back to Sargasso for reproduction. The eels return all the way to the Sargasso Sea where they first hatched years before. They reproduce and they die.
17:16But there's still a lot of mysteries that surround this wild life cycle that have been baffling scientists for decades. Mysteries like... No one has ever found an eel egg in the Sargasso Sea. Or... No one has ever found a major eel in the Sargasso that produced eggs. and crucially the question of reproducing eels in captivity. Well, that's another mystery. It is technically possible, but so far not commercially viable, to reproduce eels in captivity because of the complex life cycle. And this means that if you're going to grow eels in a fish farm, you need to start with live glass eels that were caught in the wild.
18:00The major market for eel products is Japan. They used to be farmed in Taiwan mostly. Then when China kind of opened up economically, many of the eel farmers moved or expanded into southern China. And then in China, the eel aquaculture kind of exploded. So today, 80 to 90 % of every eel from aquaculture comes from China. The most recent stats show that Chinese fish farms produce around 280 ,000 tonnes of fully grown eels per year, all to feed the demand for eel meat. Those products, they are so-called unagi kabayaki fillies. So unagi is the Japanese word for eel and kabayaki is the dish. So you take the butterfly fillies, like both sides of the fish, dip them in a soy sauce mix and put them on a coal barbecue.
18:56It's quite a very traditional Japanese way of preparing the eel. Chinese farms used to be stocked by a local variety of eel. So in the first place, the Japanese eel was the preferred species. But because that stock also depleted, the Asian buyers also bought European eel in Europe. So in the 80s and 90s and early 2000s, tons and tons of the European eel were exported from Europe to China. So you've got a huge demand for European glass eels to stock Chinese fish farms, when in 2010 the EU imposes its export ban. The legal supply is entirely cut off. It creates the perfect conditions for an illegal trade to flourish.
19:43They are very small. So one kilogram of glass eels is about 3 ,000 fish. That's a very handy kind of commodity to trade. So you can pack them in plastic bags just with a little bit of water. and then you can inflate the plastic bag. And then they can be good for 24, 36 hours. And because of that, it's super easy to transport them in suitcases. And that's exactly what happened. Florian says the authorities were first focused on big commercial traders who had continued trading illegally. But then... Eels popped up in suitcases, first in Madrid airport, but later on very much all over Europe Because it's so handy to transport them in suitcases, everyone can do that.
20:28You can just hire smugglers that do it for you. Like a drug mule, basically. Very much like a drug mule, yeah. I think by now they caught almost 1 ,000 mules over the past 10 years. The scale of it is staggering. Police estimate that up to 100 tonnes of glass eels are smuggled out of Europe each year, generating somewhere in the region of 3 billion euros. Before I leave, Florian mentions something interesting about some of the eel shipments they've seen within the European Union. We saw a lot of suspicious trade into countries like Poland, Lithuania. A lot of eels traded for legal purpose, restocking or farming.
21:14But in those Eastern European countries, there's hardly any restocking programmes. Florian has a guess at what might be happening. So we have to believe that a lot of those eels going to Eastern European countries were smuggled further to Asia or just across the green border to Russia and then exported from Russia or even used in Russia for farming purpose. Remember, Peter Wood told us that his company UK Glass Eels was delivering to Eastern Europe, but this trade was cut off when the UK left the EU. I mean, there's been some major difficulties like Brexit. Well, years ago, Peter also set up another company in France, which buys eels from fishermen there and sells them across Europe.
21:59That company didn't stop because of Brexit. And one of the countries they deliver to is Poland.
22:10Hello, Pavel. How are you? Hi, thank you. Nice to meet you. Hi. This is my beautiful wife. Hi, I'm Rob. Hi. Nice to meet you too. Pavel Zastrzyski is an investigative journalist who lives with his wife and their 11 cats. You can talk with her only about cats, that's it. But one cat is the favourite. It's called Milenka, it's very important. One cat is Milenka. Which one is Milenka? This is Milenka. Oh, wow, OK. And she hasn't got any... She hasn't got eyes, you know, eye, one eye. Oh, really? Oh, she's missing one eye. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Wow. Oh, wow, this is the office. Pavel shows me up to his office.
22:55It's like a war room. So it's a huge workstation with three computer screens next to each other and then a huge TV screen above it, which is also connected to the computers, the speakers. You've got a nice colourful keyboard, a picture of... Who's this picture of? John Paul II. That's Pope John Paul II, of course, who watches over all the work Paweł does. And his work on eels is almost impossible to believe. Paweł switches between Polish and English as he explains the investigation he's carried out.
23:36Strange things are happening around this, as strange as the eel itself. Like Florian, he thinks Poland isn't the final destination for a lot of the glass eels delivered here.
23:51I started talking to some people, and one of my sources told me that eels are often smuggled from Poland to Kaliningrad. Kaliningrad, the Russian enclave that borders Poland. Then he gets a tip that could be crucial, that he should take a closer look at one of Peter Wood's upcoming deliveries. His source tells him, A plane will arrive and a car will definitely arrive, which will load the cargo. Then we must go after that car and this car will go directly to the Kalingrad. Follow him and you know everything. You will catch the man red-handed.
Read the full transcript
24:32First, Pavel finds the official paperwork for the shipment. In the export documents, it clearly states to release into the natural environment. That means they cannot be used for consumption. They are protected. But is that actually being respected here? The exact date of the delivery seems to keep changing. So Pavel's keeping a close eye on the flight data for Peter's plane. Then, in early March 2025, Pavel notices a change in the online documents. According to official documents, the shipments were to go to a fish farm in Western Poland. But Peter Wood's team unexpectedly moved the shipment close to the border with Kalingrad.
25:14To certify the transaction, they needed a veterinary number of the farm where the shipment was supposed to go. And so the data of the company and the veterinary number suddenly changed. The next day, Pavel checks the flight data. The plane is on its way to Poland. This is the documentary from the BBC World Service.
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28:13Pavel stands behind a fence at the airport in Olsztyn in the north of Poland, close to the Kaliningrad border.
28:24He watches Peterwood's plane land.
28:31Then he sees a van pull up, right there, on the runway, and boxes of eels are unloaded from the plane.
28:40Pavel follows the van. He's thinking they'll head towards the border.
28:47And a very strange thing happened. because at some point this van stops on a side road, opens the door and another red car drives up. And there, one or two of these boxes are given to this man. So I'm wondering what is going on. It's not what he's expecting. He follows the van again and watches as more people come to buy the glass eels. Everything is so ordinary, so everyday, so normal, as if it were an ordinary delivery of bread to a baker. I saw several people buying these eels for their private ponds. Yes, this is not smuggling, but it is not a conservation project either.
29:40Paweł is now obsessed with finding out what's really happening to the eels that are coming to Poland. And I said to myself, OK, use all your skills. All. Start working so hard. So he starts just cold calling anyone he can find connected to eel farming. And one phone call I never forgotten. This was so great. Pavel connects with a source, but there's only so far he'll go over the phone. Pavel asks if there's mafia involved, but the guy won't answer. He just tells him to come and meet him in person. So Pavel drives to a house in the middle of a dense forest. Oh, this is absolutely horrible. Do you remember like very dark movies with fences, with trees, dark ones?
30:29It's all exactly the same. It was dark. Like a horror movie? Absolutely. But you know, this is a simple job. Go, knock to the door and ask first question. That's it. What was that like? Were you scared? Were you nervous? I'm never scared at all. I'm mental. So you went into the house and he's there in person? Yeah, with some guy, just drinking vodka. Just the sofa was very dirty, you know. Just so, so, so bad place, you know. just like very scary. Despite the drinking, they sit and they talk. The man tells Pavel a lot about the shady people involved in the eel business. But Pavel needs concrete evidence.
31:16And I ask, have you got any proof? Any files or any papers? The man's response? OK, I've got a computer, but that's working. This is not a working computer. But if you've got some engineers, etc., I can give you a computer. He gives Pavel an old company computer, the whole thing, that Pavel literally carries away from the house back to his car. He drives home amazed about what's just happened and anxious to get the computer back to see what he can find on the hard drive. But when he plugs it in...
32:02The computer started barking at me. It all started howling as if I had just opened the gates of hell. It doesn't look good. But just to be sure, it's sent off to a company that specialises in data recovery. and Pavel waits to see what they can do.
32:28At the same time, our team is trying to understand the eel-smuggling networks from Europe to China. We heard from former customs officers that much of this is done by Asian organised crime groups. We call them living cocaine, cocaine of the sea. After weeks of calls and messages, one of our team has managed to convince a middleman working for one of these groups to talk.
32:57They meet in a high-end restaurant in Paris, where Eel is on the menu. I'm going to have the smoked Eels, OK? We're going to be served here with some green apples, a condiment of licorice and a sauce of roasted butter with some leaves of oxalis on the top. Enjoy. He only agreed to talk if we don't reveal his identity, so his words are being spoken by an actor. I am the Duke. I come from a triad society in Hong Kong. We work with so-called agents, middlemen basically. They're responsible for sourcing the goods. They notify us when they have a batch of glass eels to sell but we never ask how they got them.
33:35We check the quality, condition and quantity. He says the glass eels are sourced from all over Europe and transported via various routes, first to Hong Kong and then to mainland China. My share is probably between 15 and 20%. I might be able to earn around HK$1.2 million as a result of the operation in those two or three days. And we might do this four or five times a month. That's around US$150 ,000 each operation, with up to five of those per month. So our reporter questions him about why he's OK with making this kind of money by breaking the law. Although it may be illegal to some extent, I think the definition of illegality is very vague.
34:19I think compared to the sex industry, gambling or drugs, I haven't violated the law that much. I have a clear conscience. I don't make money from women, I don't make money from drugs, I don't make money from cheating people, gambling or making people lose their savings. And as to the impact on an endangered and protected species? There is a saying in China that goes, all beings compete for natural selection. If something cannot survive in our environment, then they have to be sacrificed so that the entire food chain can continue to exist. I think eventually they will be eliminated. I support conservation in principle, but at the same time, I believe profit often outweighs the value of protection.
35:11Over the last decade, authorities in Europe have been trying to crack down on smugglers like this. And that has had a knock-on effect on the other side of the world. In the Dominican Republic, Marvin Del Cid is getting ready for an evening assignment.
35:33He's calling a contact who goes by the name Gonga.
35:41Marvin is a photojournalist, and he wants to spend the night taking pictures of the eel fishermen at a beach on the north coast. And Gonga controls the fishing there.
35:55Gonga organizes all the fishermen on the beach. Everyone who comes here has to sell to Gonga. He sets up on the beach and buys the eels. The payment is in cash.
36:09Marvin knows Gonga well, so he gets the go-ahead.
36:18At the beach, he's met by an incredible sight. It's pitch black, but the shallow waters are lit up by a sea of light. There's at least 50 of them. Each one is a head torch, worn by fishermen who carry big metal frame nets. Standing waist deep, they dip the nets in the water and then they look to see if they've caught anything. Just like Shane fishing in the River Severn, they're looking for glass eels.
36:53Back on the beach, Marvin catches up with Gonga, who's sitting with weighing scales, buckets and large plastic bags. One by one, the fishermen come with the glass eels they've collected, weigh them and are given a payment. Gonga pays for it all with big wads of cash.
37:15Marvin asks if it's not dangerous to carry around all that money.
37:22Gonga says it's fine because they're all part of the same group. They take care of themselves. And he points to a big guy in a red balaclava standing by the motorbikes.
37:44Marvin says that glass eel fishing was virtually unheard of here until just a few years ago.
37:53But starting in 2017, there was a huge boom in eels here in the country. The prices started to rise massively. Everyone started trying to catch the eel to sell it to these middlemen, who sell it to the Asian market. It was around this time that authorities in Europe were really cracking down on the illegal trade in European eels. Traders started to look for alternatives, and they became increasingly interested in another variety, the American eel, which you find in the Caribbean. Exports of glaciers suddenly started booming, and at first, Marvin says it was chaos.
38:35There was an enormous lack of control. Fights started breaking out between normal people, not even traditional fishermen. Then a black market started, people buying eels who didn't have a license for export. It is a very dangerous activity. Dangerous and often violent. We have many documented murder cases in different parts of the north due to clashes over eels between groups of fishermen. Across the border in Haiti, it's a similar story. In 2021, the country officially exported 10 tonnes of glass eels. In 2022, that number skyrocketed to 100 tonnes. And if it's hard to control the trade in the Dominican Republic, it's near impossible in Haiti.
39:22Criminal gangs rule the streets. The United Nations is warning that Haiti is on the verge of an abyss. Some of those gangs have been getting involved in the eel business. The UN's Drugs and Crime Office warns that gangs and criminal networks are exploiting the highly lucrative eel trade and further destabilising the country.
39:45Researcher Florian Stein has been following it all from Germany. We've been looking into the Glacier fishery in Haiti, Dominican Republic, etc. And it turns out that there is some kind of national quotas, but no one really cares. There's a few licenses in the hand of a very few people. Those people are connected to criminal gangs. To just make it short, the whole Glacier fishery in Haiti and probably also other parts of the Caribbean is in the hand of criminal organized crime.
40:21After a lot of planning and negotiations, two of our reporters managed to secure permission to travel to Haiti and speak to representatives of one of the main eel exporters. My name is Jean Baptiste Bo-Homme. So I'm in charge for export glass eel to Hong Kong. Sometimes we send to Canada also. Jean Baptiste paints a picture of business that's really booming. But it also sounds like a bit of a free-for-all. At the Asian villages at night, some area usually have up to 5 ,000 people fishing. And it's a big activity. It's a lot of money. Because all the guys coming to buy, usually at one seat, usually have like 100 guys coming with their money and buying.
41:08There's a lot of money moving in this area. But with this money, also comes insecurity. I could say it's kind of dangerous for those transporting the grass hill. For instance, I can give a client maybe$20 ,000 or$50 ,000 to buy the hill for me. They can lose everything. Or maybe even my own hills, I can lose it. Because the gangs might be stealing it. So all these things make it very difficult for this business. It's been tough for Haiti's fishermen too. With the trade so loosely regulated, the price of eels can fluctuate massively.
41:52This video is from 2025, when fishermen were protesting about the price of glass eels and the conditions on the market. Jean-Baptiste offers to take our reporters to the beach to meet some of them.
42:07The glass yield price in Haiti is like a stock market. So sometimes the price went up or it went down. But by this protest, that can help the export license guys to pressure to China and to raise the price and they can give a fair price to their fishermen.
42:34But when they get there, it's clear the fishermen are still frustrated and angry. A crowd gathers around and one by one, they take it in turns to air their grievances.
42:48This man says that they risk their lives to catch glass eels, but they don't earn a lot of money. The anger is directed at Jean-Baptiste and the people that they see are benefiting. While they make millions, we make zero, he says.
43:07The mood turns sour really quickly and they all have to leave. Desperate fishermen bang on the window as they drive away.
43:26Back in Poland, Paweł gets some good news. The full hard drive of the computer has been recovered and he gets his hands on over 40 gigabytes of data. This is a huge one. I don't know, 20 ,000 documents or something like this. It's a huge one. There are photos, documents. A lot, a lot, a lot of things. The inner workings of a Polish eel farm. It was incredible. It was incredible. When we opened this file, we recovered all these files. It was a key. This is the main key for all this story. Pavel gets to work slowly going through the material. Some of it is the sort of stuff you'd expect to find on a fish farm's company computer.
44:12but there's other documents and pictures that Pavel thinks are suspicious. This company is not operating only with eels. For example, these guys, I found a lot of passports, Russian people, passports. This is like maybe this company just smacking people. They seem to have been in the tobacco trade too. There is an invoice for... Leave tobacco. Leave tobacco, yeah. And there's this huge amount, just a look, this is 20 tonnes. They want to sell a huge amount of cigarettes to produce cigarettes. And cigarette production in this part of the world has a bit of a bad reputation. Because in this area, there is a lot of people just making a scam with cigarettes, crossing the border with cigarettes.
44:57There's a huge one. There are a lot of people just smuggling cigarettes. All this makes Pavel think there's some pretty dodgy people involved in this business. But what he really wants is to confirm a link between Poland and Kaliningrad. And that's when he makes a startling discovery. In some of the pictures, there's a man who looks like he's some sort of scientist working on setting up the eel farm. This document, just look. E.I. Krustalev at the bottom. Yeah, Professor Evgeny Ivanovich Krustalev. Pavel has seen Professor Krustalev somewhere before.
45:37Remember that video from the conservation project and the man in the red jacket releasing eels into the lagoon? That's Professor Krustelev. He went on to work with the Russian company Good Fish in Kaliningrad. The same guy today is the face of the biggest fish stocking project, which is supported by Peter Wood. And it looks as though Professor Krustelev has plans for eels in Russia that go beyond a conservation project. In a study, the professor reports that eels, due to the high market value, count among the most economically profitable fish overall. He says they used a small Polish eel farm as a test laboratory for industrial eel farming in Russia.
46:29We're not the only ones questioning Peter Wood's glass eel exports to Russia. In March 2025, while we're making this documentary, the UK's Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs refuses to grant a new licence to UK glass eels to export to Russia. They say it's because of what they call significant risks of illegal trading, compounded by the current situation in Russia.
46:58In September, reporters from our team go back to speak to Peter Wood about it. He shows them empty tanks that were once full of glass eels. It seems now, because of the events in Ukraine, we are no longer able to stock these lagoons through the Russian government. I mean, it's a great pity. It's a brilliant project. And, of course, there's all this argument that now we're exporting a critically endangered species. But this is why we're doing the export, because it is critically endangered, and we want to help it recover. He maintains that it's purely a conservation project. This is an environmental project.
47:37It follows exactly the same regulation that is used in the European Union for stocking. This is a non-commercial project co-funded between industry and the state. and it is part of a huge operation in restoration of habitat and improving the whole of that region.
48:06Is it really as simple as that? A groundbreaking conservation project? Pavel teams up with a Russian journalist called Ilya Shumanov who agrees to look into it. Hello, hello, hello. Can you hear me or not? Yes, I hear you. He's exactly the sort of person who might be able to get underneath the surface of something like this. And after weeks of research, he calls Pavel to tell him about what he's managed to find out. It was very difficult. It was one of the toughest investigations in my life. Because the atmosphere of secrecy in these schemes, it's a nightmare, actually. Nobody would like to talk with you.
48:47No sources. No people on the ground. Only anonymous. You tell exactly the same as my side. Absolutely same. Ilya thinks that part of the reason this is all so sensitive could be because Goodfish operates out of an area controlled by Russia's security service, the FSB. The main facilities and the main buildings, they raise in the territory connected to FSB controlled territory because it's a border controlled territory. In real life, is there a stocking programme or is this commercial? Pavel also wants to know whether Ilya thinks it's purely a conservation project. So I can say that this project, Good Fish, it doesn't look like a restoring program because it doesn't have any sense in context of the money.
49:37This is a commercial company and the logic of the commercial activity is gaining money. It means this is no commercial logic in these operations. Ilya knows this because after speaking to a number of sources, he's managed to get hold of bank account records for Goodfish that show their payments to Peter Wood. Goodfish is receiving money from the state budget as a subsidies for the EO Restocking Project. But at the same time, the amount of money that this company transferred to Peter Wood's company in the UK is much more than this company received from the state budget. It means that this is anything but not the restocking project because the government spent less money than the Russian company transferred to the United Kingdom.
50:24Between 2022 and 2024, Peter Wood's company received at least 12 payments from Goodfish. They're in different currencies, but by recent conversion rates, they totaled just over 1.7 million US dollars.
50:43OK, now I'm sending you this bank information and I will send you some more detailed information later about these operations. Thank you very much. See you later. Thank you, Pavel. See you. Bye. Ilya sends Pavel the details of all the bank transfers and what they suggest takes Pavel completely by surprise. This is so incredible. It's absolutely fantastic. He compares the dates of the payments from Goodfish with the date Peter's plane flew to Eastern Europe. The payments are made in the days just before and after a number of the flights. So it looks like there is money and there is flight. Money, flight, money.
51:32The money from Russia goes to England directly to Peter Wood. But the flights aren't just to Russia. The Russian company Goodfish also paid Peter Wood around the time his plane flew to Poland and Lithuania, countries that border Kaliningrad. The time for the money transfer coincides with when the goods are delivered to Poland. When the plane lands in Olsztyn, the money comes from Kaliningrad. What is the payment for? This is the basic question. if the goods are in Poland, what are you paying for? You know, Peter Woods got a plane called G-Eals. You should change the name. G-Deals, not Eals. Because this is deal.
52:23Great deal with money. Huge money.
52:31It's a lot to take in. Pavel needs a breather so we jump in the car and head to the mountains near his house
52:44From this point you've got incredible view, landscape for all mountains, huge one, big one green one, beautiful place but not now. It's just grey and rainy. Yeah, nothing It's a nice, quiet cool place though, the air's fresh so what did you think of today i'm tired and that's it you know all these pieces like make a huge picture now i see a bigger picture when i start i with nothing absolutely nothing now is maybe a little bit afraid i don't know but you know this ilia etc etc all this information it's maybe dangerous maybe something you know because all this F is bad all this you know just maybe you can laugh a lot but not so funny
53:38do you come here a lot? yeah yeah all the time very simple and peaceful no other stuff just be a natural with natural no problem close to natura in the same way What did you say? There's naturally nothing more.
54:06We put these findings to Peter Wood, who told us that all the payments from Good Fish were for UK eels, delivered to Russia for restocking, and were fully compliant with UK regulations. He said deliveries to Poland and Lithuania were unrelated and paid for separately by Polish and Lithuanian customers. He says any discrepancies in the customs documents featured were corrected clerical errors and it's normal procedure for glass eels to be stored by fish farms before released into the natural environment. The fish farm he delivered to in Poland told us they follow all regulations and that the glass eels in question were used exclusively for restocking lakes and none were sold commercially.
54:42We also wrote to Goodfish, who told us their payments to Peter Wood were for fully invoiced contracts for UK eels and the number of deliveries did not necessarily correspond. to the number of payment transfers. They said their only goal was to restore the European eel and denied eel imports for commercial use, adding that state subsidies were just one of their income sources.
55:05You've been listening to the documentary from the BBC World Service. Billion Dollar Babies is a co-production from Doc Days Productions and BBC Eye Investigations. It's produced by Sebastian Weiss, Marcelo Zanridal, Sam Perranti and me, Rob Wilson. It's mixed by Gareth Jones. The executive producers are Anje Bumat and Monica Garntzi. The editor is Rebecca Henschke.
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From the publisher
Eels are a popular food in parts of Asia, but they can’t be commercially bred in captivity. Coupled with trade bans to protect the highly endangered fish, this has led to baby eels becoming one of the most trafficked creatures in the world. BBC Eye and DOCDAYS investigate this global trade from the rivers of the UK to Haiti, Poland and Russia. We’re in the UK where the last remaining eel trader in the country has a licence to export baby eels to stock a conservation project in Russia. But questions have been raised over whether this is really what’s going on. We visit an investigative journalist in Poland who’s been looking into these exports to Russia and elsewhere in Eastern Europe. With access to a member of an organised crime gang from Hong Kong, we hear how smugglers evade the French authorities to export baby eels to Asia. We also visit the Caribbean where a new and booming demand for glass eels is having a big impact on communities and politics in the Dominican Republic and Haiti. A co-production from DOCDAYS Productions and BBC Eye Investigations.
