"Soft Taste" Shark Mukbang Influencer Fined 23 Million Won

Illegal Purchase Through E-commerce
Two Sellers Also Arrested by Authorities

A Chinese influencer who cooked and ate a shark, which is banned from slaughter under the Animal Protection Act, has been fined a large sum of money.

On the 30th (local time), US Fortune, Bloomberg News, and others reported on an influencer named 'Jin' who creates videos for social networking services (SNS) in China.

Only her name and gender as female are known. Jin recently posted a video of cooking a shark on SNS and was reportedly fined 125,000 yuan (about 22.76 million KRW) for violating China's Wildlife Protection Law.

According to the Market Supervision and Administration Bureau of Nanchong City, Sichuan Province, where Jin resides, it was investigated that Jin illegally purchased a roughly 2-meter-long great white shark from 'Taobao,' a shopping mall on China's electronic distribution platform 'Alibaba,' in April last year.

The great white shark is classified as a vulnerable species by the International Union for Conservation of Nature. / Photo by Yonhap News

At that time, Jin reportedly paid 7,700 yuan (about 1.4 million KRW) for the shark. The great white shark is classified as a vulnerable species by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). Under the current Chinese Wildlife Protection Law, hunting, capturing, transporting, selling, or purchasing protected species is prohibited. Violations can result in imprisonment for up to 10 years.

Three months after purchasing the shark, in July last year, Jin posted a video of cooking the shark on SNS. In the video, Jin reportedly said, "It may look cruel, but the meat is really tender." Chinese netizens who saw the video reacted negatively, saying things like "animal abuse" and "cruel," and the video reportedly caused a significant stir within China.

After receiving reports from netizens, the market supervision authorities launched an investigation related to Jin one month later. The authorities conducted DNA analysis on the shark's tissue cells and confirmed it was a vulnerable species, the great white shark. Two others who illegally captured and sold the shark along with Jin were also arrested. The exact identities of the two sellers have not been revealed.