Hidden amongst the kelp of Australia’s coastline this is what the commotion is about - abalone.

It might seem fairly innocuous but get it onto the market and you can make a fortune. Organised criminal syndicates are now involved in the illegal harvest of this highly sort after delicacy.

Get it on the black market and you can make in excess of a million dollars a year.

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Why deal in drugs when you can deal... In abalone.

“A lot of abalone is harvested and used as a form of currency for drug importation. They recruit young kids, people that want to make a bit of money on the side and they go skin diving and steal abalone and basically get paid cash. Those abalone are dried and stored and exported in quantity and are basically used to buy drugs for import into the country.”

Greg Finn is a licensed abalone diver. He concedes it's not just poachers but also some licensed divers who take more than their legal catch to sell on the black market but he refuses to name names.

“I've been told that if i don't watch myself I'll have my boat burnt to the ground. In the past, abalone fishermen have been assaulted at pubs and in their own homes by other abalone divers.”

By night and day, in the bush, scrubland and headlands - fisheries officers scour the coast in search of poachers.

Most are camera shy, particularly with a catch of undersize abalone and lobster.

Fisheries Inspector Dan Minter lets these lads off lightly, they aren't serious poachers.

“These guys aren't poachers, they've seen a couple of abalone and lobsters, they didn't have a measure on them, they had a guess, and they aren't anything sinister.”

50kms down the coast a more sinister story is unfolding. The distant flick of a flipper means little to most. To NSW fisheries inspector Glenn Staples, it's cause for a closer look.

Glenn knows this area is fertile territory for poachers, they are known to carve out their own secret bush tracks, employ decoys and to stash their catch in hidden locations until the coast is clear.

There are two divers in the water. They emerge too far from Glenn but not too far from his colleague, Martin, who nabs them in the car park.

It's called a dummy run, Dougie left the water early with just one abalone in his bag which is used to put the inspectors off the scent. But unfortunately for Dougie, the cameras did catch his mate Eric - stashing the real haul.

Dougie is a serial offender. If he gets done today, jail time is a real possibility. With a bag limit of two abalone (or four for Aborigines), a catch of 50 with many under size could incur fines of up to $88,000 or 2 years in jail.

But Doug is safe as his mate has taken the wrap and he's full of excuses.

Some years ago, fisheries made one of their bigger catches when, in a joint operation with police, they nabbed the man known as 'Keith the thief'.

Keith was caught with 100 kilo of meat or 1365 abalone. At around $165 dollars a kilo in a good restaurant, this could have been a $16,000 day.

But time and again they come back... and there is only so much ground a foot soldier can cover. A lot more than the 100 officers that NSW Head of Enforcement Glenn Tritton has in his command.

If Glenn wasn't shackled by the restraints of his political master, he'd probably give a different answer.

“The resources allocated to fisheries are never enough. They're overworked. They have so much coast line to monitor. For every one enforcement officer there is potentially another 100 abalone poachers,” says Greg

In addition to enforcement, Greg Finn believes greater size limits and harsh penalties may push serious criminals out of abalone poaching, but his optimism is tempered by reality.