The supply chain for illicit marine products involves a range of actors including fishers (individuals or commercial vessels), wholesalers, intermediaries, trans-shippers, manufacturers, artisans, exporters and importers, wholesalers, and retailers.

Organised crime groups and individuals operating legitimate businesses, sometimes in collusion, operate at every level of the supply chain, undermining efforts to trace, regulate or control the trade. Where parallel legal and illegal trades exist, products can be quickly laundered into the legal supply chain. 

Crimes range from IUU fishing, poaching and forced labour to document fraud, drug smuggling and human trafficking.