Not all the goods harvested in artisanal boats leaving from the Venezuelan Caribbean to U.S. markets prompt military action like the one ordered by Donald Trump last August. In fact, the tajalí (Trichiurus lepturus) is welcomed in the North.
Foreign trade statistics confirm that, contrary to claims made by the Venezuelan government, it is not China that imports the tajalí, but the United States. From January 2022 to June 2025, approximately 75% of total Venezuelan fishing exports (around $101.8 million out of a total of $137 million) went to the United States, as revealed by the United Nations’ Comtrade database. This approximated figure coincides with records from other international sources such as Importgenius, Panjiva, and Harvard University’s Atlas of Economic Complexity.
However, those sales to the staunchest geopolitical enemy of the so-called Bolivarian Revolution seem to embarrass Nicolás Maduro’s regime, which prefers to omit them in its official communications. For instance, in a recent episode of his Monday television program Con Maduro+, the regime’s strongman, to highlight the potential of the so-called “Venezuela Azul” and its export fish products, mentioned the participation of the Ministry of Fishing and Aquaculture in trade fairs in China and Russia. Yet, he did not even hint that such products were reaching the United States, the country that has imposed the largest and most severe financial and trade sanctions on Caracas, particularly in Florida, where a significant portion of the anti-Chavist Venezuelan exile resides.
The fact that Venezuela exports most of its tajalí volumes to the United States is a little-known reality along the eastern coasts of Venezuela, where artisanal fishermen report a temporary decline in production that is not necessarily due to fears of fishing on the open sea and becoming potential targets of U.S. military attacks in the South Caribbean under the pretext of a drug interdiction campaign. This has claimed the lives of 61 individuals and destroyed 14 vessels by October 29. (Even Trump’s Vice President J.D. Vance joked in mid-September that he wouldn’t “go fishing in that part of the world”); instead, they blame the chronic fuel shortage that prevents them from going to sea. Yet, they fail to mention the massive fish export as a reason for their absence from local markets.
One fish that is no longer sold in the market is tajalí, despite the harvesting season being in effect. “No way, it’s been a while since we saw that here,” says one vendor at the Boca del Río market, next to the once-thriving Fish Market of Cumaná, the capital of Sucre state. “For a long time, the Chinese have been taking it,” another vendor chimed in vaguely.
The artisanal fishermen and vendors consulted by Armando.info in Cumaná were unaware that just a five or six-minute walk away, in the heart of the Fish Market, there is a processing plant that exports significant amounts of tajalí to external markets. But not to China; rather to a less suspected destination: the United States.
The tajalí is also leaving
The tajalí (Trichiurus lepturus) is a marine species of the trichiuridae family, also known in the coastal areas of eastern Venezuela as swordfish or machete fish. It is sometimes referred to as belt fish or hairtail in international markets. These names are derived from the fish’s peculiar elongated and almost flat shape, with a translucent dorsal fin extending the length of its body. Moreover, the origin of its scientific taxonomy, Trichiuridae, goes back to a Greek term that means “hair tail.”
It is not a prestigious dish for gourmets, though it combines the flavorful white meat with high nutritional value. Because it lacked good publicity and its population is usually abundant, its price in mass consumer markets has always been lower than other species, making it accessible for buyers with limited purchasing power.
“It’s equivalent to sardines, whose capture and handling should be part of social programs to address local consumption in a country facing a significant food crisis. However, on the contrary, the tajalí has disappeared from the tables and fisheries of Venezuela. Its export carries an air of immorality, given the malnutrition rates among the country’s children,” observes José Pepe Cárdenas, a fishing biologist at the Caribbean South Foundation.
Indeed, since 2014, the year the food and basic necessity shortages began that would lead to an open humanitarian crisis, there has been a continuous decline in its availability in markets, leading to its practical disappearance.
It cannot be coincidental that this decline coincided with a political-administrative event: in August 2014, Decree No. 1,190 was issued, which prohibited the export of 21 food items from the basic basket as a measure to curb smuggling and the so-called “bachaqueo” (price gouging) of regulated products that was prevalent at the time, to ensure the availability of groceries for internal consumption. Unlike other marine species like sardines, mackerel, and tuna, the tajalí was not protected by the decree’s restrictions, which effectively served as a silent green light for its exportation.
It wouldn’t take long for the tajalí to become a featured product in the export offer catalog published by the Ministry of Fishing and Aquaculture alongside the Bank of Foreign Trade (Bancoex). Particularly, since Juan Carlos Loyo took the Ministry of Fishing and Aquaculture in 2022, he has actively promoted the exports of this product, especially to the Asian market, with a strong emphasis on China. Institutions like the state-run International Productive Investment Center (CIIP), led by Minister Alex Saab, celebrate the commercial potential of tajalí.
In a short period, the tajalí has emerged as Venezuela’s fourth fishing export product, according to José Gregorio Briceño, the deputy minister of Processing and Distribution of Fishing and Aquaculture at MinPesca, who announced last August the shipment of 24 tons of tajalí from Venezuela to Shanghai, China, aiming for almost 300 tons by the end of 2025.
By October of the last year, from the port of Guanta, Anzoátegui, one of the country’s main ports, the government announced the export of 140 tons of tajalí to China carried out by Pacific Sea Food CA.
However, if all the fanfare from official announcements was regarding China, the nuts were headed for the United States.
For instance, the Cumaná Seafood C.A. company exported 1,387 tons of frozen fish via maritime routes to the United States, worth $5.63 million between 2022 and the first half of 2025, according to Panjiva’s foreign trade database. The volume of these shipments, which includes tajalí, accounts for 13% of the total fishing export to that country over four years. Cumaná SeaFood leads the list of exporters of fishing products to the United States, among 77 Venezuelan companies that, according to Panjiva, sold 11,421 tons of fish related to the customs code covering tajalí, valued at $41.4 million between 2022 and 2025.
The echoes of this export boom are counterintuitive for many artisanal fishermen, who sometimes dismiss them as mere fabrications. “That’s just pure nonsense. Where are they getting all that tajalí to sell abroad?” commented M.L., an artisanal fisherwoman in Puerto La Cruz, a city near Guanta, to Armando.info. “Fishermen aren’t catching tajalí because there’s no production, no fuel,” M.L. concluded, who claims she was compelled to join a Fishermen’s Council (Conppa), community-based organizations affiliated with the Ministry of Fishing and Aquaculture.
Counterparts on Both Sides
“Good afternoon, Mr. President. Walter Alessi, president of Cumaná SeaFood speaking, located in Cumaná, Sucre state”: this is how the live broadcast featuring Maduro aired on the state channel VTV to the representative of the tajalí exporting company and other fish. Alongside Alessi is Jhony Acosta, the director of Insopesca in Sucre state, who simultaneously serves as the manager of the plant situated in the Cumaná Fish Market. The official claims on screen that Sucre is the state with the highest catch in the country, with 22,700 tons of seafood so far this year. While his voice is heard, video images flash of employees wearing white lab coats, masks, caps, and surgical gloves, cleaning and cutting fresh fish pieces for export. “Cumaná SeaFood is a leading plant in export products and quality for international markets,” he proudly states.
This occurred during a presidential TV broadcast in mid-May 2024. However, the company has a history that began years earlier, presenting inconsistencies. Although its president, Walter Gregori Francisco Alessi Arterio, stated in 2024 to official media that the company had then been operating for 18 years in the sector, its business registration shows it was established on March 7, 2019, which would coincide with five years of operation as a processing plant.
“Cumaná SeaFood meets all legal requirements to process and export all exportable species of Venezuela, not just for the USA but for the world,” a company representative told requested their version for this story via an Instagram direct message. They added that initially, they exported to Vietnam, Malaysia, Hong Kong, Spain, and Portugal, among others. “To export to China, a sanitary certification was needed, which we only received in 2024 after a coordinated effort with Insopesca and Chinese representatives. Now, we have to find customers.”
Two days before registering Cumaná SeaFood in Venezuela, on March 5, 2019, Alessi Artero established a homonymous company in Florida. Six years later, it remains active, although its name doesn’t appear in reports of Venezuelan exports to the United States.
Starting in 2022, the year it registered its first capital increase, Cumaná Seafood C.A. appears as a fish exporter in foreign trade databases. With a daily production capacity of 30 tons and storage for 70, its production is not destined for the local market. “We only export,” Alessi clarified during the state media broadcast.
During the same broadcast, the director of Insopesca in Sucre state revealed that the “company works in alliance with the State.”
However, Cumaná Seafood is not listed in the National Contractors Registry (RNC). Furthermore, in its written communication to Armando.Info, Cumaná SeaFood insisted it has no strategic alliance with the State. “The Ministry of Fishing only regulates us on the economic and strategic policies of the country. We only handle processing and international trade as a private company, without any economic association with the State.” However, it left unanswered why the Insopesca official in Sucre also appears as an executive of the private company.
Alessi Arterio is also the owner of Proyecto Costa Caribe, a construction company established in Cumaná in November 2009, which has served as a state contractor. In 2011, it executed works for Pdvsa Comunal and the Foundation for Research and Development of Aquaculture in Sucre state (Fidaes), as well as for the Foundation of Educational Buildings and Equipment (Fede) in Monagas.
Meanwhile, Mical Seafood Inc is the main buyer of tajalí, red snapper, and other species from Venezuela in the United States. It was registered in 2005 by Ricardo J. Torres, located in Cooper City, a community about 26 kilometers west of Fort Lauderdale, in Broward County, Florida.
Between 2022 and 2025, the company imported 1,272.8 tons of frozen fish from Venezuela valued at $6.1 million, according to Panjiva.
Only this year, between April 27 and August 24, 2025, Importgenius records that Cumaná SeaFood sold Mical SeaFood 235.6 tons of frozen fish in 10 shipments.
Venezuela was the fourth supplier of fish to Mical SeaFood in 2024 after Ecuador, Honduras, and Mexico, according to Panjiva. However, among the list of clients displayed on its corporate website, the Florida-based company does not mention Venezuela as one of its goods sources.
An email was sent to Mical Seafood requesting their version of their relationship with Cumaná Seafood C.A. as a client, but no response was obtained by the closing of this edition.
Drowning in Contradictions
The situation with the tajalí echoes patterns seen with other marine species during this era of official incentives for exports driven by Maduro’s regime’s thirst for hard currency: the urgency for their mass exploitation and export prevails over the environmental safeguards that the Chavista State once claimed to promote.
In August 2016, then Minister of Fishing, Ángel Belisario, banned the export of fresh fish to the Dominican Republic, Aruba, Martinique, and Trinidad and Tobago. “There is no permission for that, anyone who engages in this action is committing a crime,” he declared in an interview with state television. He took the opportunity to announce that 27 companies were interested in participating in the national market, which would generate an investment of around $500 million for the “benefit of the national industry.”
In January 2017, Belisario reiterated the prohibition on the export of tajalí while ordering the restriction of export permits issued by Insopesca due to high demand from Asia, which would have caused distortions in national fish market prices.
The following year, the government published in the Official Gazette of February 26, 2018, the resolution DM/N° 006-18 “to regulate fishing and the exploitation of the tajalí (Tridliurus lepturus) hydrobiological resource and related activities.” This resolution established a closed season from April 15 to June 15, the allowed fishing days, the requirement for an Insopesca certification for production and export, guaranteed minimum size and weight, and permitted fishing techniques (line and longline).
Regarding foreign trade, the resolution mandated quarterly inspections of export quotas by Insopesca while reserving a cap of 30% of national production for exports to ensure “the protein supply from this hydrobiological resource to our population.”
However, just seven years later, the disappearance of tajalí from fish markets and local groceries suggests a probable violation of the 30% export quota of national production, as inferred from statements from the authorities themselves.
For example, in May 2024, Nicolás Maduro announced that Venezuela was exporting 31 species of seafood, including tajalí, octopus, shrimp, and crab to 24 countries. The MinPesca took this as confirmation of the “export vocation… of the Venezuela Azul.” On that occasion, the agency also reported that Cumaná Seafood had exported 280 tons of fishing products equivalent to 70% of its production. Therefore, in that case, the prescriptive proportion was reversed: only 30% was sent to the internal market. Nonetheless, this announcement contradicts what, as cited earlier, the company’s president, Walter Alessi, claimed in May 2024 on Maduro’s television program: that all production was sold outside the country.
“We’re making up to two night fishing trips daily to catch all the tajalí we can before the closed season starts,” a uniformed officer overseeing a Fishermen and Aquaculturists Council (Conppa) admits to Armando.Info amidst piles of dry nets in front of the sea of a fishing village on the Paria peninsula, in eastern Sucre state.
While two trips are mentioned daily, they actually take place at night. In Venezuela, the fishing for tajalí is predominantly conducted in darkness using lights that attract the fish, making capture easier. This also explains why many artisanal fishermen are sidelined from this activity. This method, once prohibited, like electric fishing, is now supposedly regulated, José Cárdenas from Caribe Sur clarifies. “But its misuse has caused overfishing,” he says. “Capturing very small individuals that are later exported is a clear sign that tajalí populations are being overexploited.”
*Isayen Herrera and Isabel Guerrero contributed to this research
*This report was produced with the support of the Ocean Reporting Network (ORN) program from the Pulitzer Center
