Man gets 41 months for smuggling reptiles

[faze]

Date: Apr 05, 2004 - 02:47 PM
He pleaded guilty to shipping exotic animals

By DERRICK NUNNALLY

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.