50,000 Illegal Shark Fins Smuggled In Fake Car-Parts Boxes Across U.S.

Much as efforts to eliminate the illicit shark-fin trade have stifled the flow of the prized cartilaginous appendages, every so often an astonishing bust takes place of prodigious magnitude.

The United States Fish and Wildlife Service recently announced that in October, 2025, its inspectors “seized roughly 50,000 dried shark fins across 20 shipments at multiple U.S. ports—totaling more than 1,600 pounds valued at over $1 million.”

“The coordinated enforcement action was part of Operation Thunder, a global effort to combat illegal wildlife trade,” writes USFWS in a social-media post announcing the spree of confiscations, which began in Anchorage, Alaska, but also took place in Louisville, Kentucky, and Cincinnati, Ohio.

“All fins were seized for multiple violations of wildlife laws—another strong step forward in stopping the illegal trade of threatened species,” USFWS said of the operation—a joint effort with various international partner organizations.

It’s estimated that somewhere between 73 and 100 million sharks are harvested each year, though that number is likely a good deal higher than reported. And while officials and biologists agree that the harvesting of sharks can be done relatively sustainably and within moderation, the black market remains highly problematic thanks to, among other things, the demand for shark fin soup.

Shark fins, as with other contraband, are packed into anything and everything imaginable. Being dried, they don’t require much if any more particular packaging than, say, pills, powders, herbs, or fungi.

The fins, which were packed into cardboard boxes labeled for car parts that were crudely and loosely packed, posted from Mexico and expected in Hong Kong by way of the aforementioned U.S. towns, were confiscated per a 2022 U.S. government ruling under the Shark Fin Sales Elimination Act, which prohibits domestic purchases, possession, sales, and transport of shark fins.While silky sharks (Carcharhinus falciformis) and bigeye threshers (Alopias superciliosus) are target species that are heavily affected, a recently published study in the academic journal Science Advances suggests that illegal shark harvesting has pushed one-third of all species toward extinction.