Red Notice for rhino poacher

LYON, France – Interpol has issued a Red Notice international wanted persons notice for a man wanted for poaching rhinos on Nepalese park land.

According to Interpol, Rajkumar Praja, 30, of Nepal, is being sought to serve 15 years in prison for allegedly poaching rhinos in the Chitwan National Park and trading their horns on the international market. Authorities in Nepal dismantled a network of 13 poachers earlier this year as part of the investigation.

Police arrested the alleged kingpin, 33-year-old Buddhi Bahadur Praja, in September along with eight poachets and four smugglers who brought the horns to neighboring Tibet, according to media accounts, which claim the group is behind 12 rhino slayings in the past six years. Officers also seized two firearms --- described as a rifle and musket or "country made pistol" --- and four bullets (yes, only four).

Plea in horn, tusk case

The owner of a Chinese antique business has pleaded guilty to rhino and tusk smuggling in connection with a US Fish and Wildlife Service investigation. Here are the details:

Ringleader Of International RhinoSmugglingConspiracy PleadsGuilty To Wildlife Trafficking Crimes
Dec. 19, 2013

WASHINGTON – Zhifei Li, the owner of an antique business inChina, pleaded to organizing an illegal wildlife smuggling conspiracy in which 30 rhinoceros horns and numerous objects made from rhino hornand elephant ivory worth more than $4.5 million were smuggled from the United States to China.

Li, 29, of Shandong, China,the owner of Overseas Treasure Finding in Shandong, pleaded to a total of 11 counts: one countof conspiracy to smuggle and violate the Lacey Act; seven counts of smuggling; one count of illegal wildlife trafficking in violation of the Lacey Act;and two countsof making false wildlife documents.

Li was arrested in FloridainJanuary2013on federalchargesbroughtunder seal in New Jersey and shortly after arrivinginthe country. Before he was arrested, he purchased two endangeredblackrhinoceros horns froman undercover US Fish and Wildlife Service agent in a Miami Beach hotel room for $59,000 while attending an antique show. Li wasarrestedaspart of “Operation Crash” – a nationwide effortledby the USFWSand the Justice Department to investigate and prosecute those involved in the black market trade of rhinoceros horns and otherprotected species.

In papers filed in Newarkfederalcourt, Li admitted that he wasthe “boss” of three antique dealers in the United States whom he paid to help obtain wildlife items and smuggle them to him via Hong Kong. One of those individuals was Qiang Wang,aka “JeffreyWang,” who was sentencedto 37 months in prison on Dec. 5, 2013, inNew York. Li arranged for financingto pay for the wildlife, purchased and negotiated the price, directedhow to smuggle the items out of the United States, and obtainedthe assistance of additional collaborators in Hong Kong to receive the smuggled goods and then smuggle them to him in mainland China.

In pleading guilty, Li admitted that he sold 30 smuggled, raw rhinoceros horns worth approximately $3 million – approximately $17,500 per pound –to factories in China where rawrhinoceros horns are carved into fake antiques known as Zuo Jiu (which means “to make it as old” in Mandarin). In China, there is a centuries old tradition of drinkingfromanintricately carved “libation cup” made from a rhinoceros horn. Owning or drinking from such a cup is believed by some to bringgood health, and true antiques are highly prized by collectors. The escalatingvalue of such items has resulted in an increased demand for rhinoceros hornthat hashelped fuela thriving black market, including recently carvedfake antiques.

According to the charges, plea agreement and a detailed joint factual statement filed in in Newarkfederalcourt:

The investigation of Li began in November 2011, after a confidential informant sold two raw rhino horns to a middleman at the Vince Lombardi rest stop on the New Jersey Turnpike in an OperationCrashundercover sale. These government-supplied rhino horns were, in turn,sold to a Long Island City antiques dealer who wasworkingfor Li.

At Li’s direction, raw rhino horns were hidden by wrappingtheminduct tape, hiding them in porcelain vases and falsely describing them on customs and shipping documents, including by labeling them as porcelain vasesor handicrafts.

Li purchased 25 raw rhino horns, including 13 endangeredblackrhinoceros horns weighing approximately 151 pounds, through connections in New York and New Jersey, and another five rawrhino horns weighing at least 20 pounds through an accomplice in Dallas, Texas.

Li sold whole rhino horns to factories where they would be carved into fake antiques. The leftover pieces from the carvingprocesswere sold for alleged “medicinal” purposes even though rhino horn is made of compressed keratin, the same material inhumanhairand nailsand hasno proven medical efficacy.

Between 2011 and 2013, Li purchasedapproximately60carvedivory items from U.S. auction houses with an approximate marketvalue of $500,000,all of which were smuggled to China at Li’s direction.

Before arriving in Miami, Li sent a text message to the LongIsland City antiques dealer saying that he had as much as $500,000to spendinthe U.S. on antiques and rhino horn. When purchasingtwo rhino horns froman undercover USFWS agent at a Miami Beach hotel, Li told the covert agent that he was interested in buyingmore rhino horns regardlessof quality, as much as the agent could find, and inquired if the horns couldbe shipped directly to Hong Kong.

In April 2012, after a Dallas-based accomplice purchaseda large,eight-pound raw rhino horn for Li in Florida worth more than $140,000,Li sent the dealer an email directing himto cutthe hornintotwo pieces,wrap them in electrical tape, and send them to Hong Kong in separate packages. The email included a photo of the rhino horn with a red line drawnthoughit indicating where the lengthy horn should be cut.

After Li’s conspirator in Long Island City purchasedtwo rawelephant tusks for Li weighing more than 100 pounds, Li sent instructions by emailthat the shipper should declare the contents as “automobile parts”and notuse the word “tusk” on the shipping documents.

Li smuggled libation cups carvedfrom rhinoceros horns fromthe U.S. to Hong Kong. Rhino carvings valued as much as $242,500 were sold to Li’s customers in China. In early 2013, one of those customers,ShusenWei, pleaded guilty in the Southern District of Florida to knowingly buying a smuggled rhino carving from Li.

The plea agreement requiresLi to forfeit $3.5 million in proceeds of his criminal activity as well as several Asian artifacts. Also, variousivory objects seized by the USFWS as part of the investigation willbe surrendered. The maximum potentialpenalty is10years for eachof the smuggling counts and five years for eachof the otheroffenses,aswellasa $250,000 fine per count, or twice the gross gain or loss from the offense.

Below: A covert photo of Li getting horny in a Miami hotel after making a purchase from an undercover USFWS agent. Photo courtesy USFWS.

On getting lost

On a recent out-of-town trip, I decided to get lost. Well, maybe not lost. I wanted to scout around, take a route back home that I've never used before, see something new.

I've been to the city numerous times for work, but I've always visited the same half a dozen places, and that was about it. So last week, I decided to head off and work my way back on a path I've never venutred.

The inevitable happened. I veered off course and at some point ended up getting lost.

And it was great.

Tooling around the city as downtown turned to residental neighborhoods turned to edge-of-town forests, I resisted the urge to pull up a map on my smart phone. If I had remembered the ball compass in the glovebox, I would have ignored it. And forget about pulling over to ask for directions, sometimes it's better to figure things out on your own.

Ever since exploring the woods and towns around my home growing up, I've loved filling in the blank spaces on my mental maps. And the best way to do that is dive in and let your intuition and your sense of direction take over. That's how you find new things. Like Goblin's Gulch, a small private road on the outskirts of town I discovered during my drive. It's not on any map (I'm still kicking myself for not stopping to photograph the sign).

When I was ready, I used a few basic navigation techniques to keep from going too far out. Like a big river in the woods, the interstate I usually take runs north and south, and I was somewhere to the east of it. So when I wanted to get back on track, I just headed west. Which way was west? I looked at the sun's position, checked my watch and took into consideration that the sun passes to the south in the fall.

In no time, I found an onramp and was headed back home.

Plea in Art of the Past probe

Here's the ICE account on the latest in the Art of the Past investigation:

NJ man pleads to selling stolen South Central Asian antiquities

NEW YORK – A Manhattan art gallery manager pleaded guilty last week in his role in coordinating a large-scale conspiracy to sell stolen Indian antiquities worth tens of millions of dollars.

Aaron Freedman, 41, of Princeton, NJ, worked for nearly two decades as a manager at Art of the Past, a gallery that served as a front for the sale of stolen and looted Buddhist and Hindu statues. As the store’s manager, Freedman pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy in the for conspiring to possess stolen property, along with five counts of possession of stolen property.

He admitted to assisting Art of the Past owner Subhash Kapoor, 64, with shipments of stolen antiquities from India, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Cambodia, as well as providing false provenances. As part of the conspiracy, Freedman assisted with the sale of stolen artwork to galleries and museums across the world, which included the sale of a stolen $5 million Shiva Nataraja statue looted from the Sivan Temple in India, which is now on display at the National Gallery of Australia and the attempted sale of a 2nd century B.C. Bharhut Stupa Yaksi pillar sculpture valued at approximately $15 million, which is now in Homeland Security Investigations custody pending forfeiture.

In total, Freedman pleaded guilty to six felony counts related to possession of stolen property valued at roughly $35 million. He has also agreed to cooperate with the ongoing HSI investigation and prosecution of Kapoor, who is currently in the custody of Indian authorities for arranging the theft of statues from significant cultural and religious sites in that country. Kapoor also faces charges in New York County for possession of stolen property.

"Kapoor is by far the biggest smuggler, in terms of numbers of antiquities stolen and their market value, that we have seen," said James T. Hayes Jr., special agent in charge for HSI New York. "HSI special agents continue to search and seek recovery of dozens of bronze and sandstone images of Hindu and Buddhist deities sold by Kapoor."

Sentence in rhino horn cup smuggling

Here's the latest in Operation Crash rhino horn prosecutions from the U.S Department of Justice:

New York Antiques Dealer Sentenced to Prison for Wildlife Smuggling
Dec. 5, 2013

Qiang "Jeffrey" Wang, a New York antiques dealer, was sentenced in federal court in Manhattan today to 37 months in prison to be followed by three years of supervised release for conspiracy to smuggle Asian artifacts made from rhinoceros horns and ivory and violate wildlife trafficking laws,

Wang was arrested in February 2013 as part of “Operation Crash,” a nation-wide crackdown in the illegal trafficking in rhinoceros horns, for his role in smuggling “libation cups” carved from rhinoceros horns from New York to China. Wang was sentenced Dec. 5 in the Southern District of New York.

According to the information, plea agreement and statements made during court proceedings:

In China, there is a tradition dating back centuries of intricately carving rhinoceros horn cups. Drinking from such a cup was believed by some to bring good health, and antique carvings are highly prized by collectors. Libation cups and other ornamental carvings are particularly sought after in China and in other Asian countries, as well as in the United States. The escalating value of such items has resulted in an increased demand for rhinoceros horn that has helped fuel a thriving black market, including fake antiques made from more recently hunted rhinoceros.

Wang admitted to participating in a conspiracy to smuggle objects carved from rhinoceros horn and elephant ivory out of the United States knowing that it was illegal to export such items without required permits. Due to their dwindling populations, all rhinoceros and elephant species are protected under international trade agreements. Wang falsely labeled the packages in order to conceal the true contents and did not declare them as required. Special Agents with the U.S Fish and Wildlife Service executed a search of Wang’s apartment in Flushing, New York, and found documents showing Wang was involved in buying rhino horn and ivory artifacts and smuggling them to China. Agents seized two ivory carvings, including one found hidden behind Wang’s bed that were forfeited as part of the sentence.

Numerous photographs of raw and carved rhinoceros horn, including approximately 10 different raw rhinoceros horns, were found on Wang’s computer and telephone consistent with a common practice of emailing or texting photographs of items for sale in order to receive instructions on whether to purchase the items and how much to pay. According to prosecutors, Wang had told other dealers that he was seeking raw rhino horns to send to China.

In sentencing Wang , Judge Forrest said that his behavior helped “create and sustain a marketplace for goods made from endangered wildlife.” Judge Forrest also said that Wang’s conduct was “illegal and extremely troubling.”

In addition to the prison term, Judge Forrest ordered Wang, 34, will have to forfeit certain ivory goods in his possession, and he is banned him from all future trade in elephant ivory and rhino horn.