Coral smuggling towards Tunisia by Chinese, Italians and Indians

Eastern and Central Coral professionals have expressed their opposition to the content of the Executive Decree No. 231/215, published in August 2015.

In a communiqué sent to “Echorouk”, their representative, Reda Jinane, said they that their suggestions and proposals were not taken into account by the relevant authorities in the drafting of this contentious Decree, which was applied 15 days after the freezing of coral exploitation in 2001.

The representative also said that they are willing to wait a year longer to exploit the coral in their best interests and those of the country, while rejecting Article 13 which gives the right to the franchise through the auction starting from 500 million centimes and the coral production to be limited to 100 kg per year as “illogical” because the fishermen who operate illegally make this capture in a month only.

In the same context, professionals fear that this way of doing will push more unskilled youth to adventure by exploiting this red coral that has become a rare wealth because it has disappeared from other seas of the world, fueling the parallel market involving Hindu, Italian and Chinese dealers through the covert Tunisian network where the Algerian coral is marketed under the Tunisian label.

Moreover, the Algerian security services annually make public the coral seizures that run into hundreds of kilograms, which do not reflect the full extent of trafficking and which joins that of drugs because there is a certain collusion between coral traffickers and those of narcotics.

To this effect, the Annaba-based National Gendarmerie seized 126 kg of coral last year, illegally harvested by divers off the Annaba and El Hadjar coasts.