The illegal market in Red Abalone is a million dollar industry. Even as sport diving takes are being estimated as being valued at about ten million dollars, poachers benefit greatly from restrictions that have been put on commercial harvesting of the Red Abalone off of the coast of California north of San Francisco, and recently a poaching ring was discovered and charged with having gotten away with filching a cool twenty tons of Red Abalone in a one year period!
The reasons Red Abalone poaching is so widespread are simple: abalone diving is low risk, and involves a very low overhead, consisting more or less of the procurement of diving gear and some specialized abalone removal tools, and the fact that prices for Red Abalone run anywhere from forty dollars apiece to one hundred dollars a pound depending on the market. Red Abalone quite possibly has helped to pay more than a couple of poachers’ children’s ways through college!