A seafood salesman was on Friday given a two-year suspended jail sentence for smuggling endangered eels worth more than £53 million ($69 million, 61 million euros) out of Britain.

Gilbert Khoo played a “leading role” in a large-scale commercial operation to illegally export endangered European glass eels, Judge Jeffrey Pegden told a London court.

He also said the criminal operation had a “significant environmental impact” on the species, which are threatened with extinction unless threats against them are closely controlled.