Galápagos, a paradise under criminal siege

When Migration Police opened the backpacks of three Thai passengers at Guayaquil airport, they found something that should not have reached the mainland: 12 Galápagos black marine iguanas whose scientific name is Amblyrhynchus cristatus. They had been transported from Seymour Island with their front legs tied to their bodies and their hind legs bound together. They were completely immobilized, weak, some near death. There were 12 of them, and on the Asian and European markets they would fetch between $25,000 and $500,000 each.

Three months later, another suitcase revealed the same pattern. This time it was at Quito airport. A Russian national was carrying 32 juvenile marine iguanas distributed in eight small containers. Authorities found them weak and dehydrated. The woman was detained and placed in pretrial detention.

For Christian Sevilla, director of Ecosystems at Galápagos National Park, those cases are only the visible part of a larger problem. “Illicit wildlife trafficking is one of the biggest threats we are facing in the Galápagos,” he says. The business generates money, he explains, and those who run it adapt their methods whenever authorities change their control systems.

It is not just a matter of obtaining an animal and hiding it in a suitcase. The chain begins much earlier: capture, stockpiling, internal movement, maritime or air transportation, departure from the archipelago and, finally, national or international sale.

Organized network

Park rangers have identified stockpiling sites in remote, sparsely populated parts of the islands, some of them hard to reach. There, according to Sevilla, specimens can be kept until they reach the quantity requested by buyers abroad. Officials have found sacks and animals in places where they should not be. On San Cristóbal, for example, they have discovered land iguanas, a species that does not occur naturally on that island.

The mechanism seems simple and, at the same time, hard to dismantle: someone captures the animals, others gather them in isolated sites on the island and then someone else finds a way to remove them. “It is clear that there is an internal network within the Galápagos,” Sevilla acknowledges. That network, he explains, is believed to be supplying the animals that are then sold and transported to the mainland and overseas.

At the hearing to formally charge the three Thai nationals, prosecutors spoke of a trafficking network that hypothetically includes island residents and public officials who allegedly participated in the capture and transfer of the 12 iguanas. Galápagos National Park, however, has not been able to determine who makes up that structure or establish whether public officials are part of it. They have left that task to the Prosecutor’s Office and the specialized police units investigating the cases.

In 2021, police officer Nixon Polo was sentenced to three years in prison for trying to remove 185 hatchlings of giant tortoise hidden in a suitcase from the islands. Seven months later he was released. A year later, the tourist vessel Xavier III was intercepted with 84 tortoises and five golden iguanas on board. The three people convicted in that case received the minimum sentence: one year in prison. In total, four cases have been investigated for crimes against fauna and flora, in which traffickers tried to remove 324 specimens of iguanas and tortoises.

For the security analyst Michelle Maffei, one problem lies in how Ecuador has treated this crime. The penalties, she argues, do not match the money this market moves nor the structures that may be behind it.

According to the Organic Comprehensive Penal Code, crimes against flora and fauna can be punished with sentences of one to three years in prison, depending on the case. “Like white-collar crimes, species trafficking is not punished with penalties similar to those for drug trafficking, even though they are equally serious crimes and equally profitable for the criminal structure,” Maffei says.

It is a criminal platform that has operated for decades, using maritime routes around the islands for fuel trafficking, drugs, illegal fishing and now an international demand that turns their unique animals into merchandise.

The financial incentive is enormous. A marine iguana can reach about $25,000 on the international market. A pink iguana, whose habitat is restricted to a zone of Wolf Volcano, can fetch between $25,000 and $500,000, according to a Traffic report cited in an investigation by La Barra Espaciadora and Mongabay Latam. A juvenile giant tortoise can sell for between $5,000 and $7,000 and an adult can reach $60,000.

“There is a black market that sells them as food, pets or for display to collectors who pay a lot of money to own unique species,” Maffei explains, adding that it is also a market within organized crime that has consolidated and helps finance criminal groups.

The islands have another particularity: they are the last bastion of peace in a country traversed by growing gang violence tied to drug trafficking. While complaints for crimes against people do not reach one percent, there are more than 300 complaints for crimes against fauna and flora. Most involve run-overs of tortoises, iguanas, pelicans, attacks on sea lions or theft of endemic animals and plants.

Galápagos also has a condition that makes controlling this trade especially difficult: it is an archipelago. Its 324 islands and islets add up to about 1,000 miles of coastline. For a marine iguana, that means there is no single exit point. It can be captured practically anywhere and then moved by sea or land to one of the connection points with the mainland.

San Cristóbal is particularly vulnerable. It is the last island on the route before departure to the mainland and, for that reason, Sevilla considers it a point that requires special surveillance.

But the park has limited resources: it currently has 289 staff. They have also been affected by recent budget cuts by the executive branch. Around 150 people work in the field and barely 40 are assigned specifically to control tasks. Sevilla estimates they would need at least 30 additional people to carry out more effective surveillance.

Unique animals on the planet

The marine iguana, in particular, has an importance that goes beyond its commercial value. Sevilla explains that these reptiles are part of the archipelago’s ecological chain: land iguanas are herbivores and contribute to the functioning of vegetation, while marine iguanas help maintain the coastal food web.

There are three species of land iguanas and one species of marine iguana, the latter with 11 subspecies recognized by the park. They have a unique ability: they can be on land but are also able to swim to feed on marine algae.

International pressure against trafficking increased in December 2025, when CITES member countries approved moving the Galápagos marine iguana from Appendix II to Appendix I. The measure entered into force on March 5, 2026. This implies a much stricter international protection regime and that international trade in wild specimens is subject to exceptional conditions.

The decision came at the same time as early signs of a more active international route emerged.

A study cited by La Barra Espaciadora and Mongabay documented that at least 60 Galápagos iguanas had circulated internationally with fraudulent CITES permits to collectors in Asia and Europe. CITES had also warned about Galápagos land and marine iguanas declared as captive-bred and exported from Switzerland to Uganda, despite their origins requiring greater scrutiny.

Galápagos is the start of a chain that connects the coast with international airports and buyers willing to pay thousands of dollars for a species they cannot find anywhere else.

Authorities have managed to recover some animals, but returning them to the islands is not straightforward. The 12 iguanas from the first case underwent health checks before their return; ten eventually went back to Galápagos, but remain in captivity while their progress and any risk to other species are assessed. The 32 found in Quito remain under observation while authorities determine whether they can be repatriated.

Sevilla warns that returning an animal without knowing its health status could introduce diseases into a population that has evolved in isolation for thousands of years. In certain cases, he adds, they may be forced to keep specimens on the mainland or consider euthanasia as a precautionary measure.

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