Man Gets 41 Months For Smuggling Reptiles

[george]

Man gets 41 months for smuggling reptiles

He pleaded guilty to shipping exotic animals

Leong Tian Kum spent months sealing exotic turtles and tortoises into Federal Express boxes for clandestine shipments from Thailand to locales across the United States and Europe, including a pet store in Waukesha.

Because of it, Kum was sentenced Friday to 41 months in a federal prison after pleading guilty to charges of conspiracy to smuggle animals and money laundering.

U.S. District Judge Lynn Adelman explained that he hit Kum, 34, with a heavier sentence than first-time offenders normally get because investigators found Kum had also sent a series of e-mail messages working out the logistics of his plot to smuggle five Thai prostitutes into Singapore.

"I have disgraced my fellow Singaporeans," Kum told Adelman in his plea for leniency before the sentence was handed down.

Kum and Waukesha pet store owner Reid Turowski, 29, each pleaded guilty to conspiracy to smuggle animals after U.S. Fish and Wildlife officials uncovered Kum's animal-bootlegging scheme through an intercepted package at the Federal Express processing station in Anchorage, Alaska, in January 2003. Kum had been shipping animals in boxes, which he labeled as wooden handicrafts, toys, clothing or stuffed animals to skirt inspections, for months.

"Of course, that's not exactly what was in there," Assistant U.S. Attorney Rick Frohling said.

Inside the airtight boxes were dozens of tiny reptiles - including Indian Star tortoises, Chinese water dragons and emerald tree monitor lizards - some of which can't be legally shipped into the United States. All animal shipments into the country are subject to inspection, because some species are too rare to be brought out of their own habitats and many species are capable of posing threats to human health or native animals.

Authorities have tried to crack down on the illegal-animal trade in recent years. The practice has drawn scrutiny because of outbreaks of monkeypox and severe acute respiratory syndrome, both of which can be transmitted from animals to humans.

Yet smuggling persists, because buyers are willing to pay prices such as $500 for Indian Star tortoises and $2,000 for Komodo dragons, Frohling said. "You can make just as much profit on animals as you can on drugs," he told the court.

The allure of easy money drew Kum, who had been working for a Thai university for $600 a week after his business failed. Kum said he had attended universities in London and Wales, and he spoke precise, if hesitant, English, sometimes sobbing as he told Adelman how he fell into animal trafficking once plans to raise farm animals for legitimate trade fell apart.

Between January and July 2003, authorities grabbed nine packages from Kum's shipments and found at least 175 animals in them, Frohling said. He said the estimated street value was more than $200,000. Investigators also bought some animals from Kum covertly and under surveillance, and Kum was ordered Friday to pay back $8,120 from those transactions.

For his smuggled animals, Kum usually got money through a friend in New Jersey who accepted payments and wired them to a Thailand bank account, which led to the money-laundering charge.

Kum was arrested after he went to Florida in 2003 to find new customers. Authorities then dug into his network of contacts and discovered the e-mail about plans to get into the Thai sex trade, which Adelman called a factor in sentencing Kum, who would have otherwise faced a maximum sentence of 37 months.

Adelman approved Kum's request to serve time in a Lompoc, Calif., facility to hasten the deportation Kum likely faces on release.

Turowski's sentencing on one count of conspiracy to smuggle animals is set for April 16. He faces a maximum sentence of five years.

--Agencies 2004-03-06

[castelleone]

maybe this is not a topic of great importance to many people but I am very contented that the authorities do punish smuggling of animals that hard. We only have this one world and turtles as well as other species should remain in their original habitat. Keep going judge!

[tonysmal]

The recent accounts in the media of illegal wildlife smuggling would appear to show an alarming increase in this despicable trade! Whilst it may be true, as a result of public concern, that more attention is now being focused on this activity, the fact remains that the perpetrators are not at all deterred because the fines imposed on those caught are so puny.

Recently Khun Pornpen (The Wild Animal Rescue Foundation of Thailand (WAR) Secretary General) had a call from the Royal Thai Forestry Department (RFD) to inform her that the police had intercepted a 10 wheel truck that was carrying an illegal cargo of 6,300 fresh water turtles, poached from the local area in Kanchanaburi. Four men were arrested and when questioned one admitted to being on bail from a previous arrest one month earlier where he was caught trading in pangolins (scaly ant-eaters), yet another endangered species.

WAR has known for some time of this type of back-to-back trading where turtles and other wildlife species are poached in this area, taken to Hat Yai where they are smuggled into Malaysia for the cooking pots, with the return load being pangolins destined for Laos and on into China.

The maximum fine under current Thai law for illegal wildlife smuggling is a paltry 40,000 baht, hardly a deterrent! Additionally, the fact, as admitted by the forestry chief, that some government officials are also implicated in this trade does not bode well for the future of Thailand's diminishing wildlife.

Khun Pornpen most vehemently explained these points during her speech, in the presence of the Deputy Prime Minister. WAR is calling for a change in the law to punish offenders more appropriately, route out corruption, educate local people in the consequences of poaching wildlife and attempt a sea change in people's attitudes to stop buying and eating illegally poached wildlife.

"When the buying stops the killing stops too" - Trade in wildlife around the world totalled one trillion baht a year, according to WWF studies on wildlife.

In Thailand, 80% of wildlife trade occurs in Bangkok. Shops in 23 out of 25 hotels in Bangkok under the study carried products made from wildlife.

[tonysmal]

If you care to find out more about the wildlife trade in Thailand then read the articles published on the Wild Animal Rescue Foundation of Thailand's (WAR) web-site:

[drbones666]

(Tongue-in-cheek Mode On)

OTOH - He was going to bring in some Thai lovlies to give the fat white bitches some competition. Most likely that's why the FWB judge hit him so hard. She saw the writing on the wall i.e. her kind losing control and dying out. Didn't have a thing to do with animals.

(TIC Mode Off)

Snickities Batman, Waukesha is Milwaukee, Wisconsin where I went to University. Who would have guessed such evil was going on there? The animal importation I mean.

[Mason45]

What a pity he didnt include some extra reptiles in his shipment that call themselves the Thai Government.

[et33.com]

and when the animals are all gone

we shall first start with human babies eh ???

only 41 months ??

make it ten years man...

think of the thousands and thousands of beings that was killed

because of that ######...

sigh...

and think of the millions of relatives of the animals that miss their folks...

sigh...

[huahin]

Serves the idiot right however , money is the root of all evil.

[Khun Larry]

Man gets 41 months for smuggling reptiles

He pleaded guilty to shipping exotic animals

Leong Tian Kum spent months sealing exotic turtles and tortoises into Federal Express boxes for clandestine shipments from Thailand to locales across the United States and Europe, including a pet store in Waukesha.

Because of it, Kum was sentenced Friday to 41 months in a federal prison after pleading guilty to charges of conspiracy to smuggle animals and money laundering.

For his smuggled animals, Kum usually got money through a friend in New Jersey who accepted payments and wired them to a Thailand bank account, which led to the money-laundering charge.

I am that "friend" in NJ.

I spend about 4 months a year in Thailand to avoid the winter. I have a numer of friends who live in Bangkok year round. In December 2002 I was introduced to Leong Tian Kum on Soi 7 at the food court. He was a friend of a friend. Sometime later, around April 2003, while I was in New Jersey he contacted me. He said he sold something on ebay and needed a way to get the money to Thailand. So I agreed to help him. A check came to my home and I wired the money to Thailand. In July 2003 a few Federal Agents came to my home for a chat. I was at the Federal Hotel on Soi 11 at the time. When I got back to New Jersey they returned looking for my bank records..... not as much fun as the Beer Garten. Luckily I did not get charged, but they could have charged me with all the same crimes as Leong Tian Kum.

Moral of this story is be careful who you help out. Especially in Thailand.

Chookdee krup