United Kingdom: Celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay was covered in petrol and threatened at gunpoint in Costa Rica while conducting an investigation on shark finning as part of Channel 4's Big Fish Fight series.
"It is a multibillion dollar industry, completely unregulated," he said. "We traced some of the biggest culprits to Costa Rica."
Ramsay explained that the day before he and his team arrived, a Taiwanese crew landed a catch of hammerhead sharks, after which police found bails of cocaine on the boat.
"These gangs operate from places that are like forts, with barbed-wire perimeters and gun towers," he continued, reports The Telegraph.
At one such establishment, Ramsay said he managed to get away from the people keeping him and his team away. He then hurried up a set of stairs to a rooftop and looked down to discover "thousands and thousands of fins, drying on rooftops as far as the eye could see."
"When I got back downstairs they tipped a barrel of petrol over me. Then these cars with blacked out windows suddenly appeared from nowhere, trying to block us in. We dived into our car and peeled off," he recalled.
Later on, the chef and the film crew persuaded a group of fishermen to let them onto one of the fishing boats engaged in the illegal shark fin trade.
"In a quiet moment I dived from the boat to swim with marlin. I swam under the keel and saw this sack tied to it. I opened it and it was full of shark fins. The minute I threw this bag on deck, everyone started screaming and shouting," Ramsay said.
He explained that, back at the wharf, people pointed rifles at the film crew so they would stop filming. Then, a van filled with suspicious-looking characters made them stand against a wall.
"The police came and advised us to leave the country. They said 'if you set one foot in there, they'll shoot you'," he added.
Shark finning, both pervasive and largely unregulated, has stimulated a multi-billion dollar industry.
After having their fins slit off, sharks are thrown back into the water still alive, where they slowly perish.
Scientists estimate that many shark stocks are consequently facing steep declines – even by as much as 95 percent. Shark specialists believe that 100 million sharks are killed yearly for their fins across the planet.
Natalia Real (Fishing Information and Services)
