Officials Hunt Contraband of a Wild Kind

In 1995, U.S. Customs officials at LAX stopped a man as he waddled off his flight from Russia.

“They questioned him because he smelled funny,” said Assistant U.S. Atty. William Carter. “They found 20 Siberian bear gallbladders--half-a-million dollars worth--tied around his waist. Can you imagine sitting next to this guy all the way from Moscow?”

After drugs and guns, wildlife--dead or alive--is the most common type of contraband smuggled across American borders, federal officials say. The sale of live exotic species and rare animal parts believed to have healing properties constitutes a $6-billion black market. Wildlife advocates say the trade is stripping the planet of its biological diversity.

“Often they are dealing with an animal that is a significant part of a very small ecosystem,” said U.S. Fish and Wildlife Inspector Michael Osborn. “And when they start taking pieces out of the puzzle the whole thing will collapse.”

Earlier this month a Mission Viejo man was convicted of smuggling 57 gecko lizards worth $85,000. Adrian Sheldon Cunningham, 43, arrived at LAX with a kayak bag full of live reptiles from New Caledonia in the South Pacific.

He faces a four- to 10-month federal prison term when he is sentenced next month.

Many of the smugglers are tourists who think of the rare species as a kind of living souvenir. Others are small-time collectors. A rare handful are big-time smugglers netting hundreds of thousands of dollars a year capturing animals all over the world for global customers, investigators say.

In one of the largest wildlife smuggling busts in recent years, federal agents this month arrested Anson Wong, a politically connected Malaysian reptile dealer, in Mexico.

Among the species Wong allegedly smuggled was a Komodo dragon, an endangered reptile native to a small area of Indonesia, that can fetch $30,000. Other species Wong allegedly smuggled include the spider tortoise of Madagascar ($2,000), Gray’s monitor of the Philippines ($8,000) and the Chinese alligator of the lower Yangtze River ($15,000), according to U.S. Fish and Wildlife officials.

Wong faces up to 20 years in federal prison and a $500,000 fine.

Protected reptiles have become a la mode with illegal animal traffickers because they are rare, sturdy and quiet.

“A reptile is much easier to smuggle than a monkey or a bird,” said Osborn. “They don’t make noise and they’re cold-blooded, which means you don’t have to have a specific temperature. You can even mail them. They can spend three or four days in the mail and come through it easy.”

Smugglers are not only trying to bring rare and protected animals into the country, they are also trying to take out California species.

Osborn recalled a man who was caught in 1996 at LAX with 53 baby king snakes and rosy boas taped to his body.

“He had cut nylon stockings, put the snakes in and tied them at either end to make bracelets on his arms and ankles--he even had them around his waist,” Osborn said. “Customs thought he was wearing baggy clothes because he was packed with money--they got a little surprise.”

Last year another man tried to bring in rare fish from Mexico by hiding them in a false gas tank in his camper.

Tragically, many of the smuggled animals do not survive.

“A lot of them get smuggled in the holds of airplanes where it gets very cold, or they are smuggled by Federal Express or in the mail and they get thrown around and smashed or frozen or they get too much heat,” said Carter. “And even when we catch them here, in many cases we can’t send them back because the countries won’t repatriate them because they may have diseases.”