Highly prized, and highly priced, Asian fish keeps enticing dealers "Individual sales of protected and prohibited fish will not independently cause extinction or ecological disaster. Yet the aquarium hobbyist industry, as a whole, can have that very impact," prosecutors said in a recent case. BY: MICHAEL DOYLE | 02/28/2022 01:49 PM EST
A tender leans over a tank displaying an arowana to fix the air pump in May 2005 in Singapore, where the ninth International Aquarium Fish and Accessories Exhibition and Conference was held. Wong Maye-e/AP Photo
GREENWIRE | Pittsburgh-area resident Anthony Nguyen is starting 2022 as his first year on federal probation and as a case study of the enduring black-market appeal of two distinctive fish from Asia called the arowana and the snakehead. Also known as dragonfish, and less romantically as the Asian bonytongue, arowana have been called the most expensive freshwater fish on earth, with specimens reportedly commanding prices in the tens of thousands of dollars. Snakeheads, as ugly as they sound, are a rapacious invasive species. Nguyen pleaded guilty late last year to trafficking in both. “Individual sales of protected and prohibited fish will not independently cause extinction or ecological disaster,” prosecutors said in a subsequent sentencing memo. “Yet the aquarium hobbyist industry, as a whole, can have that very impact.” Prosecutors added that “the impacts of unscrupulous collection can lead to devastating impacts on the natural environment of the species, as well as the environments in which they are kept as pets.” Snakeheads, in particular, are aggressive bullies that take over their new neighborhoods. “Asian arowana are one of the most endangered species in the world, and the global black-market trade in this fish seriously threatens their survival in the wild,” prosecutors declared, adding that “the sale of snakehead fish presents a very different kind of harm.” The arowana has been listed as endangered under the Endangered Species Act since 1976. Nonetheless, the arowana trade is colorful and dangerous enough to be the basis for a book by Emily Voight, titled “The Dragon Behind the Glass: A True Story of Power, Obsession and the World’s Most Coveted Fish.” It has also periodically drawn the attention of Fish and Wildlife Service investigators. In 2012, for instance, a Canadian pet dealer was sentenced to 60 days in jail and fined more than $20,000 after pleading guilty to smuggling invasive and endangered species into the United States. The pet dealer sold protected axolotl salamanders, arowanas and snakeheads to an undercover FWS agent (Greenwire, Nov. 14, 2012). In another case from about the same time, the owners of an aquarium business in Washington state were convicted of smuggling arowanas and were ordered to forfeit assets valued at over $150,000 and spend three months in home confinement and one year on probation. The property forfeited included four of the highly prized fish, FWS reported. Noting that Nguyen, too, had previously pleaded guilty in 2011 to an earlier episode of fish smuggling, prosecutors asked a federal judge to sentence Nguyen to at least a month in prison following his guilty plea to two counts of violating the Lacey Act. Instead, U.S. District Judge Nora Barry Fisher last November sentenced Nguyen to two five-year terms of probation, to be served concurrently. A George W. Bush appointee, Barry followed the request of Nguyen’s defense attorney. “Without minimizing his actions in any way, Mr. Nguyen’s fascination with exotic-type fish appears to be cultural in nature,” assistant federal defender Jay Finkelstein wrote in a sentencing memo. “This is more of a hobby than a business for Mr. Nguyen.” Finkelstein added that he is “confident that Mr. Nguyen now understands that he cannot be involved with these types of fish in any way whatsoever.” Nguyen was first arrested in 2008 while attempting to smuggle 11 Asian arowana into the United States. Records recovered by investigators documented the sale of about 33 arowana dating back to 2006. He pleaded guilty in 2011 to one count of smuggling and was sentenced to 12 months’ probation. Despite the repeat offense, and unlike the potentially sky-high prices that the fish can command, Nguyen’s defense attorney described the latest violation as modest in scale. “According to the government, Mr. Nguyen offered the fish online to an aquarium owner for $1500 and received a total of $500 for the snakehead fish,” Finkelstein wrote. “Clearly, Mr. Nguyen made a minimal amount of money as a result of his actions in this case.”