By Roy Denish
Sri Lanka’s multi-day trawler industry is facing serious scrutiny over allegations that shark fins are being illegally harvested, concealed at sea and smuggled through fraudulent export channels to feed high-value East Asian markets. Conservationists warn the trade is driven by profit, economic hardship and weak enforcement across sea and land networks.
Driven by the high-dollar demands of East Asian luxury markets, a network of thousands of Sri Lankan fishermen and logistics operators are using secret compartments and fraudulent shipping documents to smuggle illicit shark fins out of the country.
The underground trade has expanded despite strict domestic bans, fueled entirely by the massive profit margins of the global black market.
On the retail market in East Asian transit hubs like Hong Kong and mainland China, premium dried shark fins regularly fetch between $400 and $1,200 per kilogram.
In contrast, local middlemen in Sri Lanka purchase the dried fins from fishermen for $25 to $65 per kilogram.
While far below the final retail price, these payouts offer a staggering financial temptation to local mariners facing deep economic hardships, outstripping the profits of standard commercial fish like tuna.
Marine conservationists and local fisheries authorities estimate that the illicit network now involves several thousand people across the island.
Out of Sri Lanka’s active fleet of more than 4,500 multi-day fishing boats, officials estimate a significant minority, potentially involving 2,000 to 3,000 mariners and boat hands, opportunistically harvest shark fins during weeks-long deployments in the Indian Ocean.
A smaller secondary network of a few hundred land-based operators handles the coastal purchasing, drying, and eventual export logistics in hub cities like Negombo, Jaffna, and Colombo.
The smuggling operations rely heavily on maritime concealment and documentation fraud to bypass law enforcement.
Fishermen frequently engage in shark finning at sea, slicing the lucrative fins from live sharks before discarding the carcasses overboard.
This allows crews to evade Sri Lankan laws that mandate all sharks must be landed with fins naturally attached to the body.
Once dried at sea, the cargo is hidden inside custom false bulkheads, secret compartments, or buried deep under tons of legal catch to escape visual inspections by the Sri Lanka Coast Guard and Navy at major harbors.
To move the illicit cargo across international borders, trafficking syndicates use fraudulent shipping paperwork.
Shipments destined for international markets are routinely declared under generic categories such as “dried seafood” or “marine products.”
Traffickers then route the mislabeled containers through circuitous shipping lanes in Southeast Asia to mask the original port of departure before the product reaches its final destination, where a single bowl of shark fin soup can sell for up to $200.
