Uploaded February 2026 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
There's a huge transnational illegal trade going almost undetected in the Indian ocean: Not drugs, not guns...but sea cucumbers. They have become the most trafficked marine species in India, and growing globally too. We dove into the murky depths of how this came to be.
This report was supported by the Pulitzer Center.
#PlanetA #SeaCucumber #Poaching
Credits:
Reporter: Aditi Rajagopal
Camera: Dheeraj Aithal
Line Produce Anaka Kaundinya
Video Editor: Andreas Hyronimus
Supervising Editor: Kiyo Dörrer, Adam Baheej Adada
Fact Check: Aitziber Romero Bengoetxea
Thumbnail: Em Chabridon
Thank you for background interviews to:
Manish Chandy
Pankaj Sekhsaria
Sanjib Kumar Roy
Teale Phelps Bondaroff
Dr PS Asha
Dr Arivazhagan
Dakshin Foundation
The fishers, naturalists and inhabitants of the islands
Read More:
Regional reporting on sea cucumber poaching on the islands: andamansheekha.com/149787 and nicobartimes.com/local-news/why-foreign-poachers-keep-targeting-andaman-nicobar-the-sea-cucumber-factor
Research by TRAFFIC and WWF-India highlights on scale of the threat that sea cucumbers: wwfin.awsassets.panda.org/downloads/sea_cucumbers_in_illegal_trade.pdf
Comprehensive paper on sea cucumber crime in India and Sri Lanka: oceansasia.org/sea-cucumber-crime-in-sri-lanka-india
Paper on dried sea cucumbers (bêche-de-mer) in Hong Kong markets: sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0308597X24004500
Sea cucumbers in CITES: cites.org/sites/default/files/documents/COP/20/agenda/E-CoP20-090.pdf?
Chapters:
00:00 Intro
00:36 Meet the sea cucumber
03:00 The price of being tasty
04:43 How to catch a poacher
07:37 The government's stance
09:36 Cucumber crime
12:00 A poacher speaks
13:16 The way forward
15:14 Reflections
We're destroying our environment at an alarming rate. But it doesn't need to be this way. Planet A explores the shift towards an eco-friendly world — and challenges our ideas about what dealing with climate change means. We look at the big and the small: What we can do and how the system needs to change. We'll take a truly global look at how to get us out of this mess.
Follow Planet A on TikTok: tiktok.com/@dw_planet
There's a huge transnational illegal trade going almost undetected in the Indian ocean: Not drugs, not guns...but sea cucumbers. They have become the most trafficked marine species in India, and growing globally too. We dove into the murky depths of how this came to be.
This report was supported by the Pulitzer Center.
#PlanetA #SeaCucumber #Poaching
Credits:
Reporter: Aditi Rajagopal
Camera: Dheeraj Aithal
Line Produce Anaka Kaundinya
Video Editor: Andreas Hyronimus
Supervising Editor: Kiyo Dörrer, Adam Baheej Adada
Fact Check: Aitziber Romero Bengoetxea
Thumbnail: Em Chabridon
Thank you for background interviews to:
Manish Chandy
Pankaj Sekhsaria
Sanjib Kumar Roy
Teale Phelps Bondaroff
Dr PS Asha
Dr Arivazhagan
Dakshin Foundation
The fishers, naturalists and inhabitants of the islands
Read More:
Regional reporting on sea cucumber poaching on the islands: andamansheekha.com/149787 and nicobartimes.com/local-news/why-foreign-poachers-keep-targeting-andaman-nicobar-the-sea-cucumber-factor
Research by TRAFFIC and WWF-India highlights on scale of the threat that sea cucumbers: wwfin.awsassets.panda.org/downloads/sea_cucumbers_in_illegal_trade.pdf
Comprehensive paper on sea cucumber crime in India and Sri Lanka: oceansasia.org/sea-cucumber-crime-in-sri-lanka-india
Paper on dried sea cucumbers (bêche-de-mer) in Hong Kong markets: sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0308597X24004500
Sea cucumbers in CITES: cites.org/sites/default/files/documents/COP/20/agenda/E-CoP20-090.pdf?
Chapters:
00:00 Intro
00:36 Meet the sea cucumber
03:00 The price of being tasty
04:43 How to catch a poacher
07:37 The government's stance
09:36 Cucumber crime
12:00 A poacher speaks
13:16 The way forward
15:14 Reflections
We're destroying our environment at an alarming rate. But it doesn't need to be this way. Planet A explores the shift towards an eco-friendly world — and challenges our ideas about what dealing with climate change means. We look at the big and the small: What we can do and how the system needs to change. We'll take a truly global look at how to get us out of this mess.
Follow Planet A on TikTok: tiktok.com/@dw_planet
