Malaysia identified as a major transit point for elephant tusk smugglers

Saturday September 3, 2011
By ISABELLE LAI
Star

PETALING JAYA: More than 20 tonnes of illegal ivory have passed through at least two Malaysian ports since 2003, earning the country an unsavoury reputation as a transhipment hub for the multi-million ringgit trade and the figure involves only those seized.

Wildlife monitoring trade network Traffic regional director Dr William Schaedla said Malaysia had become a major hub for illegal ivory trade in the last few years.

This could have been caused by stricter enforcement measures in neighbouring countries, leading smugglers to venture through Malaysian ports, he said.

“Smugglers tend to move to an easier' place. If enforcement in other countries heats up, then they will find a soft spot elsewhere,” he said.

It was reported that 794 African ivory tusks were confiscated by Hong Kong authorities on Monday after they arrived by sea from Malaysia. The tusks, weighing 1.9 tonnes and estimated to be worth around HK$13mil (RM4.97mil), was concealed in a consignment declared as non-ferrous products for factory use.

The seizure came after last week's report that more than 1,000 elephant tusks were seized by Tanzanian authorities. The tusks were hidden in a strong-smelling container of anchovies destined for Malaysia.

The huge amount of ivory being shipped accounts for thousands of elephants killed in the past few decades. Some tusks come from freshly-killed animals while others are from stockpiles.

Dr Schaedla said it was vital that Malaysia increased its regional cooperation and exchange of information with Asean countries via the Asean Wildlife Enforcement Network.

He also suggested that customs officers improve their communication mechanisms by using the Ecomessage system set up by Interpol. (Ecomessage is a database to coordinate international efforts to combat environmental crime, including illegal trafficking of wildlife.)

Local enforcement agencies should gather intelligence or information and bring it to the National Central Bureau (NCB) located at the federal police headquarters in Bukit Aman.

Dr Schaedla said Malaysian customs officers should also work with the World Customs Organisation's regional intelligence liaison offices to exchange information and intelligence effectively.

However, Dr Schaedla commended the Customs Department for heightening its enforcement measures of late, saying: “Malaysia is now quite serious about wildlife crime but still has a long way to go.”

Traffic has identified Malaysia as “a country of concern” in its latest Elephant Trade Information System (ETIS) report.

Records of confiscated ivory shipments showed several seizures in other countries had transited through Penang and Pasir Gudang, which were considered “high-volume” ports.

Among the countries that seized ivory shipments after transiting through Malaysian ports were Hong Kong, Taiwan, Japan, Vietnam and Thailand.

The latter two are themselves known transit hubs for the illegal ivory trade, according to Traffic reports.

A general manager of a shipping company said there were around 50,000 to 100,000 containers which entered ports for transit in a month, adding that the containers were allowed to be stored free in the container yard for 28 days.

He claimed that Customs officers would only conduct an X-ray inspection on containers if they had a tip-off.

According to the World Wildlife Fund Global website, there could have been as many as three to five million African elephants in the 1930s and 1940s.

However, today, only some 300,000 elephants roam southern Africa and considerably fewer in West Africa.

Another smuggling of exotic wildlife

If you read the article below, you will notice that the seizure was with the help of a tip-off. So competent? Several questions need some answers.

How does the driver so easily vanish?

How come the lorry can pass the Msia's check point?

If it has been a tip-off, enforcers would have ample time to catch the smuggler even before entering the check point!

The driver could be informed by officer on the take?

Where do you think the wildlife will be released? As usual we won't know. Perhaps these wildlife could be sent back to the smuggler. Everything is just doubtful.

Money is king ok!

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December 22, 2010
Saved from fate as exotic meat
Story and photos by G.C. TAN
thestar

OVER 1,800 endangered reptiles meant for the cooking pot were rescued by the Customs Department at Bukit Kayu Hitam.

Acting on a tip-off, the department personnel seized 475 hill tortoises, 437 freshwater tortoises, 710 monitor lizards and 196 cobras and king cobras from a lorry that was parked near the Malaysia-Thai duty free zone at about 6.40am on Monday.

The reptiles were kept inside blue sacks, plastic bags and plastic baskets that were hidden in between heaps of empty fruit baskets and 20 boxes of sawn logs meant for carving.

State customs director Ishak Ahmad said the lorry had passed through the Malaysian Immigration checkpoint and had queued to enter the Thai checkpoint that opened at 7am.

“We believe the reptiles which weighed 4,300kg would end up in restaurants selling exotic dishes in a neighbouring country.

“The smugglers thought they can fool us by hiding the reptiles in the front part of the lorry and the empty fruit baskets and logs behind,” he said to reporters at the Customs store yesterday.

Ishak said the department laid an ambush for the lorry which was left unattended.

“We moved in after two hours when there was no sight of the driver or conductor,” he said.

He said this was the biggest seizure of wildlife by the department this year.

He said the reptiles worth RM24,000, lorry and the 20 boxes worth RM6,000 would be handed over to the state Wildlife and National Parks Department for further action.

Wildlife Smuggler from Penang

August 21, 2009
Report lodged against convicted wildlife smuggler, two govt agencies
By JOSHUA FOONG
newsdesk@thestar.com.my

KUALA LUMPUR: A group of non-governmental organisations has lodged a police report against convicted wildlife smuggler Anson Wong, the Department of Wildlife and National Parks (Perhilitan) and the Customs Department.

Speaking to reporters after lodging the report at the Brickfields Police Station, Malaysian Animal Rights Society president R. Surendran said:

“The reason we are lodging the police report is because, over the years Perhilitan has failed to take any action against Wong for smuggling and has even given him special permits to catch and keep animals.

“We know that one of the modus operandi of wildlife traffickers is to get permits to keep animals and later declare them dead, when in actual fact they have been smuggled out of the country,” he said.

Last Friday, Surendran lodged a report with the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission on possible corruption involving Perhilitan.

The report lodged was also based on the book The Lizard King that exposed the existence of such a trade in the country.

He cited page 192 of the book by American Bryan Christy that highlighted a relationship between Wong and a “second-ranked Customs official” in Penang.

He called on the police to investigate Wong’s activities since the 1990s.

Also present with Surendran Friday were representatives from the Malaysian Animal Welfare Society, Pet Positive and the Independent Living and Training Centre.

Two Members of Parliament -‑ S. Manikavasagam (Kapar) and M. Manogaran (Teluk Intan) ‑- accompanied the group.

Manikavasagam said that he would raise the issue in Parliament during the October meeting.

---------------
August 17, 2009
Author: Wong downplayed smuggling role
By HILARY CHIEW
Star

PETALING JAYA: In Philadelphia, 15,200km away from here, author of The Lizard King, Bryan Christy is keenly following recent news on infamous wildlife trafficker Anson Wong Keng Liang — one of the key characters in his book.

Christy uploaded the Starprobe stories on Malaysia being an illegal wildlife trade hotspot on his blog (www.thelizardkingbook.com/blog) and expressed his feelings on Wong’s comment about him.

Amused, he wrote: “As for his remembering our time together as only a 15-minute assignation followed by an offer of a lift home, I feel cheap…yet pregnant.”

Wong had downplayed the intimate information of his smuggling activities detailed by Christy in the book released last September.

In his latest entry, Christy said he was pleased that the Malaysian public are speaking up as shown by the letters to The Star, calling for investigations into the allegations of the involvement of a high-ranking officer in the Department of Wildlife and National Park (Perhilitan) in Wong’s trafficking activities that led to his incarceration in the United States in 2001.

Wong was lured by an undercover agent to Mexico in 1998 and later extradited to the US at the end of 2000.

He pleaded guilty to some 40 counts of smuggling, conspiracy, money laundering and violations of US wildlife protection laws and was sentenced to a 71-month jail term and fined US$60,000.

The three-year Operation Chameleon infiltrated Wong’s network which imported and exported more than 300 protected species by concealing them in express delivery packages, airline baggages and large commercial shipment of legally approved animals.

The ring also trafficked in several extremely endangered reptile species in the wild, including the Komodo dragon and the rarest tortoise species on earth, the Malagasy ploughshare tortoise.

The Starprobe articles also attracted the attention of local bloggers including one who is acquainted with Wong.

Zeek (http://zeeknotgeek.blogspot.com) said he remembered Wong fondly as the Ah Liang uncle that he used to hang out with when he was younger.

---------------

August 13, 2009
Ministry to review Wong’s special permits
Star

PETALING JAYA: The Natural Resources and Environment Ministry will review former wildlife trafficker Anson Wong’s special permits and licences, and probe allegations that a high-ranking officer has been involved in his smuggling activities in the past.

Minister Datuk Douglas Uggah Embas said he had instructed officers to gather all the relevant documents from the Department of Wildlife and National Parks (Perhilitan) immediately to facilitate investigation into allegations of special permit abuses.

“We will check the background of Wong’s tigers. We will get to the bottom of this matter.

“We are concerned about the reputation of Malaysia being a trafficking hub and we are doing our best to curb this menace,” he told The Star yesterday.

He said Perhilitan had acknowledged that in the 1990s, auctioning of confiscated specimen was one of the disposal methods but that this practice had since been stopped.

Wong was convicted of trafficking in highly endangered species by the US government in 2001 and sentenced to 71 months in jail.

On Tuesday, the Penang Government demanded to know details of the special permit and licences issued to Wong over two Bengal tigers.

Petition to amend the Protection of Wild Life Act 1972

Since Malaysia loves to use ISA. Why not use it on smugglers? Smugglers are threat to national interest. Our natural heritage being destroyed. So ISA them, what say you Botak?

----------

JOINT PRESS RELEASE
28th September 2008
Malaysian Nature Society
TRAFFIC Southeast Asia
Wildlife Conservation Society
WWF-Malaysia

Better Law for Wildlife in Malaysia
Petition to amend the Protection of Wild Life Act 1972

Petaling Jaya, Selangor – Today, the world celebrates International Tiger Day, a celebration of the tiger in its wilderness. While we celebrate its strength, beauty and perseverance, today also presents the ideal opportunity to mark our commitment to save the Malayan tiger

Currently, tigers and other wild animals in Peninsular Malaysia are protected by the Protection of Wild Life Act 1972. This 35-year-old law is severely outdated and riddled with loopholes.

There is a serious need for the Malaysian government to remedy the loopholes and beef up the law, as many species continue to be poached and illegally traded at alarming rates. Wildlife
offenders often escape arrest, prosecution and punishment.

We understand that the government is in the process of revising this law. However, we urge the government to seek public input in this process.

Examples of amendments needed; i)That all products containing or claiming it contains parts of totally protected species to be made illegal; ii) That mandatory jail sentences and stiffer fines
are imposed for serious wildlife offences.

Help us reach the target of 100,000 signatures for our Malayan tigers. Your voice to this petition will make a difference, for tigers and other wildlife in Peninsular Malaysia.

Sign this petition at www.petitiononline.com/MYLaw/petition.html

RM3 million worth of wildlife seized in Bolehland

In 2004 he was fined RM7,500 for smuggling wildlife.
Today he was out on bail with only RM19,000.
By next February 20 (case mention), he could probably be fined around RM20,000.
No wonder this illegal smuggling will never cease.
If you are a business man, think of this logic. If you escape the smuggling, you make RM3 mil. If caught, you only pay a minimum in fine. Pay a few officers on the take and you still make alot. Probably you can still get back the "goods" as they will be auctioned out.
So tell me how can this illegal smuggling be stopped?
NO Way....unless the authorities are serious.
Read the story below......

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November 12, 2008
About 7,000 monitor lizards saved from the cooking pot

Staronline
By ZANI SALLEH

KUALA LUMPUR: More than RM3mil worth of live and dead animals were seized when the Wildlife and National Parks Department raided two locations in Johor last week.

Among the animals were more than 7,000 clouded monitor lizards, 1,000 owls, pangolins, crested serpent eagles, pythons, mousedeer, Malayan porcupine, wild pigs and bear parts.

A 49-year-old man was charged in a magistrate’s court in Tangkak on Nov 7 and is out on a RM19,000 bail.

The black market value of the wildlife seized in Muar and Segamat, is believed to be more than RM3mil.

Director-general Datuk Abd Rasid Samsudin said that this was the second time the man was detained for a similar offence.

He was fined RM7,500 in 2004 for possessing 182 pangolins and 1.3kg of pangolin scales.

“The live and dead animal parts can be distributed for consumption as exotic dishes in restaurants, “ he told a press conference on Wednesday.

He said the dishes, cooked with herbs were widely popular among diners, especially men, and were often priced at RM300 per bowl.

To meet the demand, the protected animals are highly paid for by restaurants in Vietnam, Hong Kong and China.

Mohd Rasid said eight members of the Wildlife Crime Unit seized 13 species of protected wild animals at the man’s house during the first raid which was conducted in Muar on Nov 4 at about 8am.

The dead animals were in several freezers while the live animals were found in the backyard.

The team raided another location in Segamat three days later and found 7,093 live clouded monitor lizards kept in a holding centre.

“The monitor lizards, weighing approximately 35,000kg, can fetch between RM50 and RM80 per kilo in black market trade,” he said. The case is due for mention on Feb 20 next year.

Wildlife Smuggling - Between Facts & Fictions

How do you explain the following:

- the continuous smuggling of wildlife

- the cheap, cheap fine for offences

- exotic meats are available if you know the right restaurant

- confiscated wildlifes were autioned to the public

- strangly, most smugglers were caught when the public reported to authority

Wildlife trading is lucrative. Rampant smuggling and corrupt officers in Bolehland - is it a fiction?

In Bolehland, when Government officers deny anything, chances are they are the exact opposite. Do you doubt it?

--------read this article below---------

NewsFocus: Malaysian who loved his wildlife
NST Online
2008/09/21

Frilled dragons, native to New Guinea and Australia, turned up in the US with Malaysian paperwork; the star tortoise is a protected species under the Wildlife Act.

An American-penned hardcover details how Malaysian Anson Wong, dubbed 'the most important person in the international reptile business', was nabbed in Mexico and also his alleged links with Malaysian officials, writes ELIZABETH JOHN.

IT'S a story of crime, wildlife smuggling and money.

It stars flamboyant characters dripping with gold chains, driving luxury vehicles and politicians -- the smugglers who are as slippery as the rare reptiles they traffic across the globe for sums of money that beggar belief.

But what is so fascinating about The Lizard King or relevant here is the capture of one Malaysian reptile smuggler and his vast reach and influence.

Key agencies linked to the smuggler are the Wildlife and National Parks Department (Perhilitan) and the Royal Malaysian Customs Department.

Perhilitan enforces the Convention on the International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (Cites) through checks, permits and quotas for the wildlife trade.

Customs controls what goods enter and exit at major entry points in the country.

Both agencies have responded to the links drawn between them and the smuggler in this recently published work of non-fiction by American lawyer and writer, Bryan Christy.

The 240-page hardcover that went on sale in Malaysia last month is dominated by the story of a cat-and-mouse chase.

It is the story of the Van Nostrands -- once the primary supplier of reptiles to pet stores and zoos around the world -- and the determined special agent Chip Bepler, of the US Fish and Wildlife Service, who tries to nab them.

The father-son team of Ray and Mike Van Nostrand ran Strictly Reptiles and were known as the most notorious reptile smugglers in the United States.

At its height, the company occupied a 10,000 square-foot warehouse in Hollywood overflowing with a menagerie of reptiles.

It boasted a frog room, arachnid room, python rooms, a locked venomous room and even walk-in freezers in which dead snakes and spiders were kept for voodoo rituals.

With specimens like giant Aldabra tortoises priced at US$22,500 (RM78,000) a pair, the money was good.

But the real thrill lay in collecting the rare, the unique and the hardly-ever-seen.

One of the Van Nostrands' many suppliers was Malaysian wildlife trader Anson Wong.

The book describes Wong as "the most important person in the international reptile business" and "reptile smuggling's crown jewel".

The chapter "Fortress Malaysia" tells of Wong's dealings with an undercover agent that leads to his arrest in Mexico City in 1998.

Wong was extradited to the US and in 2001, was sentenced in a US federal court in San Francisco to 71 months in prison for trafficking in rare and endangered wildlife.

It was dubbed one of the largest cases of illegal trade ever prosecuted in the US.

Drawing from legal documents, official investigation reports and interviews, Christy describes how Wong had laundered protected star tortoises by the hundreds though Malaysia and the Middle East.

Frilled dragons, native to New Guinea and Australia, turned up at the Miami International Airport accompanied by Malaysian paperwork.

Wong boasts about working things out with a high-level government official.

Christy also describes the awe of one human courier when he was received at the Penang airport and driven to Wong's office by a high-ranking Customs official.

And the book is peppered with Perhilitan officers.

Wong also boasted about bribing Cites officials to falsify permit details.

Perhilitan officers would sign a permit allowing the trade of a protected animal under the terms of the convention.

The convention ensures that international trade in wild plants and animals does not threaten their survival.

Quotes from recorded telephone conversations and from faxes and emails between Wong and the US agent who posed as a wildlife importer, tell how the former took advantage of loopholes in the law.

He would arrange for a fall guy to get arrested with smuggled wildlife and then buy the confiscated animals that are auctioned off by authorities, legally, under the law. All the while knowing he would be safe. As one quote reads: "I could sell a panda and nothing. As long as I'm here, I'm safe."

Obsessed with meaner, hotter creatures

AS a second-grader, Bryan Christy brought a king snake to school for show-and-tell. "Kids gathered, naturally; teachers from other grades poked their heads into the classroom, older boys stopped me in the hallway; The principal called me to his office so he could look inside my pillowcase.

"I don't think I ever recovered from the celebrity I achieved simply for holding what other people were afraid of, what they had been taught was wrong," Christy writes in his book The Lizard King.

It seemed like reptiles were always treated as nature's outlaws and for this one-time lawyer and Fulbright scholar, a crime story about reptiles seemed like the perfect vehicle to tell a reptile story and make it interesting even for people who didn't like them.

This is what he achieved in The Lizard King -- opened a small but rare window into the world of reptile smuggling where a childhood fondness for creepy crawlies morphs into an adult obsession for bigger, meaner, rarer and hotter creatures.

And when he discovered the ingenuity of Mike Van Norstrand, a king of that wild universe, and the incredible effort of agent Chip Bepler, who strove to stop him, Christy knew he had a reptile thriller.

"When I found out how their relationship ended, I wanted to write a book to honour that story," he said.

So Christy sought out Van Nostrand, slowly befriending him and finally persuading him to open up about himself, his world and legal troubles.

Then one day, Van Nostrand instructed his lawyer to turn over six years' worth of legal files to Christy.

"As a lawyer, getting access to a criminal's files was an incredible gift.

"I got the files late in my work so it was also an additional way to confirm that all my facts were right."

It took Christy four years of research and three months of writing to realise The Lizard King.

Dozens of official sources and countless meetings with every major character who played a part in the real-life version of the story added to the workload.

The response, he said, had been good in the conservation and wildlife trade communities.

That's no surprise when a book tells of turtles stuffed into suitcases and snakes smuggled in trousers, while painting a very human picture of crafty smugglers -- with insights into their childhood, families and obsessions.

The book isn't meant to judge.

"There are high walls between these two worlds. Midway into this book I realised I might be able to build a window.

"It made me realise the book might be important as well as entertaining and led me to ground it in history people might not know."

But the writer still thinks that illegal trafficking is a horrendous crime.

"There is not a country in the world that adequately polices illegal wildlife trade.

"By definition illegal trade is cross-border and there are no adequate resources or manpower devoted to it.

"Wildlife crime is crime and source countries and consumer countries need to treat it that way."


A work of fiction, says Wildlife Department

IT'S all fiction -- that's the response from the National Parks and Wildlife Department (Perhilitan) to some of the startling revelations in The Lizard King.

In a faxed response to the New Sunday Times, the department said it did not confer any immunity or special treatment to anyone in the wildlife trade and questioned the author's motives.

"Where the Wildlife and National Parks Department is concerned, this book is simply fiction.

"There is no reference or citation, thus its reliability and integrity is questionable," the fax read.

In the end notes, author Bryan Christy did list his sources.

The book was based on thousands of pages of telephone transcripts and investigative reports from the US Fish and Wildlife Service.

In response to our questions, Christy said conversations in quotations were taken verbatim from recorded telephone conversations.

Christy added he had access to agents across the country and had assistance from enforcement agencies in the Netherlands who helped in the US investigations.

Lead investigator Chip Bepler's personal notes were made available to Christy and the US attorney's office in Miami made its prosecutors available throughout South Florida where much of the story is based.

Christy said he met most of the major characters, including Anson Wong whom he interviewed last year. He described Wong as "very gracious".

Perhilitan said Wong carried out his business legally and in compliance with domestic laws.

"The key person (Wong) mentioned in the said book has been compounded and dealt with under the Protection of Wildlife Act 1972," the department said.

In a follow-up telephone conversation, a Perhilitan officer clarified that this was for previous offences and not the case which led to Wong's arrest in 1998.

On the disposal of confiscated animals, the department said it had been carried out in compliance with procedures.

On Malaysia being a conduit for the illegal wildlife trade, the department said: "Due to the strategic location surrounded by rich biodiversity countries, Malaysia is the best target used as transit point to smuggle animals ever since the illicit wildlife flourishing (sic)."

Meanwhile, the Customs Department said it would investigate the incident implicating one of its officers.

In an email response, head of the public relations unit, Hamzah Ahamad, assured that if at all true, it was an isolated case.

Kelantan still notorious for wildlife smuggling

After trailing for SIX hours, a smuggler could easily jump off and ROW a boat across a river and escape! This can only happen in Bolehland!!! Read the story below.

From The Star
Wednesday October 17, 2007
Kelantan still notorious for wildlife smuggling
By IAN MCINTYRE

KOTA BARU: Kelantan continues to be a hotspot for wildlife trafficking despite various efforts to smash syndicates smuggling out protected and exotic species.

The conclusion was reached after an anti-smuggling unit recently thwarted an attempt to smuggle out the carcass of a two-year-old female black panther at the border township of Rantau Panjang, 50km from here.

Wildlife enforcement officials accompanied by the anti-smuggling team trailed a suspected smuggler for six hours last Thursday near the township before intercepting his car at about 5pm.

The suspect abandoned his car, jumped into a boat and rowed through Sungai Golok to reach the Thai side.

A state Wildlife and National Parks Department spokesman confirmed that the panther, worth an estimated RM16,000, was the work of a syndicate and investigations were underway to nab the culprits.

The carcass is currently stored at the department’s office as part of the investigation and it is believed that the protected species was killed in a Kuala Krai forest.

According to Traffic South East Asia (Wildlife Trade Monitoring Network) senior programming officer Chris Shepherd, the porous boundary conditions are ideal grounds for organised smuggling of wildlife, notably leopards, tigers, pangolins and freshwater turtles.

Malaysia as a member of Asean, is increasingly under threat from transboundary smuggling and the resulting effect is dwindling numbers of protected species and exotic animals, Shepherd said.

“The entire region is facing increasing pressure from wildlife smuggling. Enforcement authorities are struggling to keep abreast of the tactics of organised wildlife smugglers.
“What has been detected is only the tip of the iceberg,” he said.

Kelantan is a traditional smugglers den and it is also a top transit route used by wildlife smugglers to send across shipments to Thailand and China where the black panther is destined for the cooking pot.

To make matters worse, Malaysians are increasingly fond of exotic animal meat.
Despite the presence of wildlife conservationist groups such as World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF-Malaysia) and various campaigns here, the state continues to be notorious for wildlife smuggling.