In one of the more bizarre police actions of 2013 a shipment of young eels has been stopped from entering Spain where the slippery cargo would have been worth upwards of €28,000.
In Spain the tasty tapas are a highly appreciated delicacy and the interception of the illicit cargo at the Guadiana bridge will bring tears to many an Andalucian gourmand.
The eels are worth about €500 per kilo and were caught illegally, in fact no fishing for elvers is allowed in Portugal to protect the future of the adult eel stock.
The 42-year old driver of the vehicle was nabbed on Thursday with individual 100 gramme bags of elvers which since have been destroyed, allegedly.
The GNR’s Office for the Protection of Nature and the Environment is now investigating the origin of the elvers and already suspects they had been captured on the central west coast. The same source stated that this shipment is one of the largest captured in recent years.
The juvenile eels are four to five centimetres long and are only allowed to be caught on the Rio Minho. The elver is an endangered species and registered as such by the Portuguese authorities.
