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Insect bust
| Date: |
22 May 2005 12:00 |
| Producer: |
Jan Lampen
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| Show: | Carte Blanche |
Exotic insects, obsessive collectors, illegitimate traders and shady exporters... In an undercover operation that includes the co-operation of Germany, Spain and Japan, we join the Special Investigation Units of Nature Conservation as they prepare a trap for a scam artist who is cashing in on this lucrative business.
Our story starts with the arrival of Mr Hiramatsu a Japanese businessman who arrives at Johannesburg International Airport with a suitcase full of dollars. He has come to buy some rare insects to add to his collection at home and he has gone to a lot of trouble to get all the paperwork done. Outside, he is met by an insect trader with criminal intent.
Jaques du Toit (Chief nature conservationist, Department of Agriculture, Conservation and Environment): 'He would pick him up at the airport, take him to one of these hotels that he identifies, book him in, have him comfortable, carry on with negotiations, then at some stage remove him from the hotel and then go into his hotel while the client wasn't there, and then basically steal what they can find there.'
Ruda Landman (Carte Blanche presenter): 'Less than a week later, Mr. Hiramatsu was on his way back to Japan. He had lost almost $20 000 and the insects he'd been promised never materialised.'
Of the insect trader - not a trace. According to Jacques du Toit, a member of the Special Investigations Unit of the Department of Agriculture, Conservation and Environment, this case has all the markings of a Nigerian scam.
Ruda: 'It's an elaborate scam for a relatively small reward.'
Jaques: 'It's true, there's a big market for it and they do collect it for their own personal use. There's absolutely no other reason for it. It's a personal collection that they build and due to this they are easily lured into false information. They would believe anything because they want the specimens being referred to.'
So who are these insect collectors and what makes them tick? Professor Henk Geertsema, an Entomologist and lecturer at Stellenbosch University is also an avid collector.
Prof. Henk Geertsema (Entomologist): ' I believe in what I call the 'cave syndrome'. In the olden days, people would literally drag everything to the cave - be it food or the wife or whatever - and I think the collecting hobby is actually part of this collecting syndrome, and some people have got it worse than other people have got. For example, I collect butterflies, moths, stamps, cigar labels, including specific flowers. It's not a hobby any more. It's an obsession.'
Professor Geertsema uses his private collection for educational purposes. These are colophon beetles - high on the 'must have' list of insect collectors all over the world.
Paul Gildenhuis: 'Every person that collects beetles... these collectors will not leave until they have a colophon beetle. Colophon beetles you will only find in South Africa and they are extremely rare. Some of them literally occur in areas the size of a room.'
And according to Paul Gildenhuis of the Cape Nature Conservation Law Enforcement Unit, the price tag for a particular[ly] scarce variety is an astonishing 10 000 US dollars.
Ruda: 'The international trade in animals, insects, reptiles and plants is a multi million dollar industry. In the UK, for example, it has an estimated value of 50 million pounds a year. Small wonder then that environmental crime is fast overtaking gun running and drugs. And the Western Cape, with its rich biodiversity, is a prime target.'
Last year, German cousins Albert and Gunter Rautenstrauch were caught at a roadblock near Ceres with more than 200 of these endangered colophon beetles in their possession. This video was used as evidence in their trial. According to Professor Geertsema, this clearly illustrates the paradigm of giving certain species special status.
Prof Geertsema: 'The thing is these beetles in the black market are given a so-called rarity value and this is part of the law of economics - increase the demand, restrict the supply and then raise the price. And that is why some of these rogue buyers will come to South Africa, will come to Western Cape with so-called mountaineering or hiking permits and will then start to collect these beetles illegally.'
Ruda: 'These are not tourists seeing something interesting, picking it up and then taking it home; they know exactly what they're looking for, where to find it and how to catch it. And sometimes they are so obsessive that they film themselves doing it.'
This is Mr Walter Grosser and his friend Mr Vitaslav Tomasek from the Czech Republic on a tourist visa, enjoying our natural heritage. Like most insect collectors, they flew in, rented a car and brought in their insect traps.
This amateur video also clearly illustrates their interest in scorpions and lizards.
Jaques: 'What they would do is they normally take a fishing rod - and usually the type that you can take apart and put together. They would then take fishing line, put it through the fishing rod and make a hangman's noose at the end of it, and then they would walk - depending on the length of the fishing rod - up to the lizards, normally from six feet to eight feet away. They would then lower the fishing rod with the hangman's noose hanging over it, over the lizard's head, and then catch it.'
There is also a huge market for tortoises in the European pet trade. When the two Czechs were caught, they had 50 tortoises wrapped and stuffed in a suitcase. They were prosecuted, found guilty and fined R88 000 each. According to Phillip Cronje, a curator at the Johannesburg Zoo, this case represents only the tip of the iceberg.
Phillip Cronje (Curator, Joburg Zoo): 'This is the problem that's leading to animals becoming endangered, particularly tortoises. Obviously you get more money for a larger tortoise as well. And that's your breeding stock, and if that gets exported out of the country obviously in a few years time you're going to be left with all the youngsters, all the juveniles that are not ready to breed. So, in a few years time, we might end up where we have no breeding tortoises and there will be this gap of ten, fifteen, maybe twenty years before we start to produce.'
Ruda: 'There is a legal trade in insects and reptiles, but it is strictly regulated. On the internet you'll find hundreds of traders and exporters advertising their specimens. In fact, it was on the internet that Mr Hiramatsu stumbled upon a South African company called Wildpride Zoological Exchange offering insects and reptiles to trade.'
But it turned out to be a bogus company. In Pretoria, where export permits are issued and verified, Sonja Meintjies spotted the fraud immediately.
Ruda: 'How did you hear about the Japanese person who wanted to import insects into Japan?'
Sonja Meintjies (Assistant director, Trade Regulation): ' We got a fax from the Japanese CITES management authority asking us to verify a South African CITES export permit, and upon receipt of the permit saw that there was definitely something wrong with it.'
The signatures were false and the security stamps incorrect. Also, the company called Wildpride Zoological Exchange doesn't exist. She passed the information on to Jacques, but for Mr Hiramatsu, the warning came too late.
Jaques: 'Ja that's the problem. In many of these network type cases, what you do is - when you have limited amounts of information, you follow up as far as you can and then you stand back and wait for something else to happen.'
Within weeks two additional permits surfaced: this time from Spain and Germany. The exporter: Wildpride Zoological Exchange. By now the fictional exporter had taken on three different identities: Louis Fox , Onyango Jackson and Zovusi Nkumalo.
Ruda: 'With the knowledge that you have, could you build a profile of this person?'
Sonja: 'With some of the species that he exported and some of the names he used, we realised it must be somewhere north of us in Africa.'
Ruda: 'One of those suspicious export permits that Sonja received for verification came from a German trader by the name of Michael Spellbrink. He had also found Wildpride Zoological Exchange on the Internet. This time, Jacques made contact with Mr Spellbrink in Germany and warned him that the exporter that he is dealing with could possibly be a scam artist.'
Mr Spellbrink agreed to co-operate with Special Investigations. Together they set up a sting to catch the trader known as Louis Fox, Onyango Jackson and Zovusi Nkumalo.
Jaques: 'At that stage he was already on the brink of coming to South Africa. He'd already made plans to come to South Africa and told the suspect, the exporter in South Africa, that he's already booked a hotel for himself.'
Instead, an undercover agent would assume the role of the German trader. Through e-mail communication, the exporter, Zovusi Nkumalo confirms that he will collect Mr Spellbrink at the airport. The trap is set.
Jacques strategically positions members of the Germiston Organized Crime Unit in the International Arrivals hall. Behind the scenes, the undercover agent who will impersonate Mr Spellbrink is waiting to walk through. These are anxious moments for Jacques. He has been trailing this person for more than a year. Then they spot him. As discussed, the exporter identifies himself by holding up a name-board.
Ruda: 'The reason why collectors or a trader like Michael Spellbrink might be tempted to do business with a shady export company like Wildpride Zoological Exchange is because it is often illegal specimens they are after. The moment Mr Spellbrink, for example, ordered more than 200 tortoises, he put himself outside the law and couldn't cry for help if he was ripped off.'
Clearly unaware of the agents surrounding him, Mr Nkumalo waits. And then the undercover agent appears. Together, they leave for a hotel near the airport. In the lobby Mr Nkumalo tries to convince the undercover agent to accompany him to another hotel. He also does not have any permits on him, and Jacques needs these for a conviction. After lengthy negotiations, Mr Nkumalo agrees to fetch them.
As he gets into a taxi, we try to follow him, but in the traffic, he gives us the slip. For Jacques, it is a long two hour wait. But on the dot at 12 o'clock, Zovusi Nkumalo is back with the permits in hand.
Wildpride Zoological Exchange has been linked to five other fraudulent permits and it is the same company that ripped off Mr Hiramatsu from Japan. Jacques gives the signal for arrest.
Mr Nkumalo turns out to be a Ugandan citizen and his passport reveals that he did not enter the country legally. Jacques confirms that the stack of permits in his possession are all fraudulent.
Ruda: 'How would you respond to claims that South Africa is a corrupt place where people are being ripped off all the time?'
Jaques: 'I would say that people busy in corrupt activities should start watching over their shoulders because the reason that you haven't been caught isn't because we don't know about it always, it's just that we are busy...'
Mr Zovusi Nkumalo, or Mr Jackson as his passport reveals, has been charged and is awaiting trial.
He was denied bail.
IMPORTANT DISCLAIMER:While every attempt has been made to ensure this transcript or summary is accurate, Carte Blanche or its agents cannot be held liable for any claims arising out of inaccuracies caused by human error or electronic fault. This transcript was typed from a transcription recording unit and not from an original script, so due to the possibility of mishearing and the difficulty, in some cases, of identifying individual speakers, errors cannot be ruled out.
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