In the bus station of Tlaquepaque, in Jalisco, the National Guard dogs are searching for drugs, but they stop at a box emitting a strong rotten smell. The agents open it and find 18 kilograms of totoaba bladders, a species of fish in danger of extinction that is protected in Mexico. For years, nets and hooks have been used to extract them massively from the water. In China, the bladder of these animals is considered a delicacy, and the millionaires of the Asian country pay high amounts of money for it. Mexican cartels are the main suppliers of what is considered the «cocaine of the sea». The National Guard reported that on June 8, several agents seized 80 pieces of totoaba bladders at the bus station in Tlaquepaque, on the outskirts of Guadalajara. They were coming from Mexico City. «Passing through the module of a courier and parcel company […] one of the canine specimens was interested in two cardboard boxes, from which emanated the aroma of some decomposing product,» explains the federal police statement. The bladder of this species can be sold in China for $20,000 per kilogram. Based on this measure, the package seized in Tlaquepaque is worth $360,000. The value of totoaba has increased since Mexico declared it an endangered species. The government banned its fishing in 1975. In 2024, in the upper Gulf of California, within the Sea of Cortez, where the species is endemic, fishermen illegally extract it from the water for the cartels to traffic with it. The researcher at the Brookings Institute and expert on organized crime, Vanda Felbab-Brown, described two years ago in an interview with EL PAÍS the interest of criminal groups in this product. «The cartels realized that these Chinese merchants were making a lot of money with jellyfish, totoaba bladder, sea cucumbers, abalone… and then they started to penetrate these economies to dominate them,» explained the expert. In the Asian country, the totoaba bladder is considered a gourmet food with aphrodisiac properties and health benefits, according to a profile of the animal made by the Federal Attorney for Environmental Protection. The species can live up to 20 years and measure over two meters. Mexico’s inability to protect the totoaba led to the country receiving a sanction from the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora last April. Mexico, one of the world’s largest exporters of exotic animals, would not be able to sell any wild species abroad. Subscribe for free to the EL PAÍS México newsletter and WhatsApp channel and receive all the key information on the current events in this country.
