A seafood salesman attempted to smuggle £5.7m-worth of critically endangered baby eels to east Asia in the first conviction of its kind in the UK.

Gilbert Khoo tried to conceal the European glass eels, an estimated 5.3 million of them, under a load of chilled fish at Heathrow Airport.

Specialist border force officers seized the highly desirable delicacy before it was due to be exported to Hong Kong in 2017.

The seized eels were eventually allowed to return to the wild.

The live consignment, weighing about 200kg, had first been transported from Spain to the UK at a farm in Gloucestershire, before he repackaged and labelled them as “chilled fish” to be sold on the black market in East Asia.

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Elvers, or baby eels, fetch more than 10 times the price on the east Asian black market than they would in the UK. Due to their status as an endangered animal, there are strict controls on their export.

Khoo, from Chessington, was arrested on 23 February 2017 when he disembarked a flight from Singapore at Heathrow Airport.

When interviewed, he told officers that he was a middleman for buying and selling seafood.

NCA investigators estimate that in two years Khoo exported or had attempted to export 1,775kg of eels with an estimated value of £53m on the black market.

He was found guilty yesterday at Southwark Crown Court of six offences relating to the illegal importation and movement of the rare eels.

Khoo is due to be sentenced at Southwark Crown Court on 6 March 2020.

NCA senior investigating officer Ian Truby said: “The entire operation run by Khoo to trade in these critically endangered animals was illegal from start to finish, and there is no doubt his sole motivation was money.

“The profits to be made from illegally smuggling live eels to Hong Kong and the Far East are significant. But, the NCA are determined to protect vulnerable wildlife from criminals who wish to benefit financially.

“Along with our partners, like border force and the Fish Health Inspectorate, we are determined to do all we can to stop the global black market trade of endangered species.”