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Speaker 1: School of Humans. On March thirtieth, nineteen thirty, Howard Gates

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Speaker 1: wrote a letter from the warmth of a campfire somewhere

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Speaker 1: in the Baja California Desert.

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Speaker 2: I see spines in my sleep. I have been down

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Speaker 2: to the axle a dozen times in mud, stuck in sand,

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Speaker 2: had to carry my load up grades, bumped over rocks,

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Speaker 2: broke a universal joint in l Aornoso, and again on

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Speaker 2: a hill. Been through l Purgatorio and down the grade

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Speaker 2: into El Inferno. Turned the truck flat on its side.

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Speaker 2: Been in perils on the seashore and mountaintops, under overhanging rocks,

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Speaker 2: and leaning cardons between the living rock and deep pits.

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Speaker 2: I drank water out of ruts in the road, forgotten

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Speaker 2: what a bridge looks like, and been sick in the

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Speaker 2: mooly hay. Trip has been wonderful.

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Speaker 1: Gates was a cactus breeder, seller, and collector. Later in life,

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Speaker 1: he'd become president of the Cactus and Succulent Society of America.

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Speaker 1: By old age, people hailed him as Mister Cactus, but

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Speaker 1: in nineteen thirty he was just a guy who loved plants.

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Speaker 1: Gates routinely flocked the desert to see his favorite specimens,

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Speaker 1: sometimes risking his life in the world's most inhospitable climates

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Speaker 1: to see them in the wild. And he wasn't alone.

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Speaker 1: You may not realize it, but there's a world of

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Speaker 1: cactus obsessives out there just like him. Consider Joelle Lode

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Speaker 1: In past lives. He was a bank employee, a television actor,

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Speaker 1: a librarian. But then he decided to do well, let's

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Speaker 1: say bigger things.

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Speaker 3: I went with my bicycles to go around the world.

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Speaker 1: From his native France, Loday pointed his bicycle tires east

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Speaker 1: and began peddling around the world. The trip would change

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Speaker 1: his life. Cycling through the deserts of Turkey and Iran,

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Speaker 1: he was mystified by the plants he passed along the way,

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Speaker 1: charmed by their endurance and their ability to survive in

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Speaker 1: such harsh environments. Later, biking across California, he'd have that

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Speaker 1: same feeling when he encountered his first wild cactus.

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Speaker 3: When I saw the first flowers on the cactai, I

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Speaker 3: was really in love because the flower was so beautiful.

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Speaker 3: In these desert where there is apparently nothing very nice,

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Speaker 3: just snakes, scorpions as spies everywhere, But this flower were

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Speaker 3: very attracting me.

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Speaker 1: Lode couldn't help but get a closer look.

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Speaker 4: I hadn't any signs in the fingers and everywhere in

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Speaker 4: the body.

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Speaker 3: So it is veryy painful, very difficult. But the flower

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Speaker 3: are so wonderful, many many different colors, very exaggerated.

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Speaker 1: From that moment, Lode was hooked. He bicycled across Death Valley,

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Speaker 1: visited every country between Kenya and El Salvador, and dodged

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Speaker 1: sniper fire and Yemen. He suffered heat stroke, encountered tomb

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Speaker 1: raiders in South America, and was even deported out of China,

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Speaker 1: all for the chance to photograph rare plants.

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Speaker 4: I was in love with them, and I am still

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Speaker 4: in love with them.

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Speaker 1: Joelle Lode and Howard Gates are just two people out there,

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Speaker 1: two people who have planned their entire lives around seeing

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Speaker 1: their favorite plants in the wild. But there are many

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Speaker 1: others with the same passion, and that love can be

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Speaker 1: the fuel driving a meaningful, well lived life. But there

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Speaker 1: is always a line, a line that divides passion from obsession,

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Speaker 1: a hobby from a fixation. Sometimes obsession can blind you,

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Speaker 1: It can make it difficult to see which side of

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Speaker 1: that line. You're on. It can open a gateway to

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Speaker 1: a life of danger and even a life of crime.

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Speaker 1: From School of Humans and iHeart podcasts, This is Bad Seeds.

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Speaker 1: I was browsing a store recently when a greeting card

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Speaker 1: caught my eye. On the front was a pretty illustration

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Speaker 1: of a cactus in full flower. Underneath it the words

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Speaker 1: the desert works constantly to forbid it, and still the

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Speaker 1: cactus blooms. I get it, it's one of those cheesy

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Speaker 1: inspirational quotes, but you know what they're really is poetry

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Speaker 1: and a cactus's spines, and it draws people in.

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Speaker 4: This is a contrast between the beauty of the flower

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Speaker 4: and the dangerousity of the plant. And this contrast between

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Speaker 4: two things completely opposite are attraction to this plant.

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Speaker 1: The cactus embodies the romance and grit of the wild West.

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Speaker 1: It is rugged party. It stares adversities square in the

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Speaker 1: face and dares to live in the world's harshest conditions.

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Speaker 1: And not only does it live, it thrives, sometimes for

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Speaker 1: hundreds of years. But put aside the romance, cacti are

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Speaker 1: reclusive too. They sprout in far flung places, the sorts

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Speaker 1: of locales that only in Indiana, Jones might explore.

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Speaker 5: My first field trip to South America was in two

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Speaker 5: thousand and sixteen, and I decided I wanted to come

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Speaker 5: and say the cop be a part in Chile.

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Speaker 1: That's Stefenberger, but a lot of people just call him

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Speaker 1: the Cactus Explorer. He is crisscross South America on the

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Speaker 1: hunt for some of the world's rarest cacti. The adrenaline

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Speaker 1: rush of finding them, he says, can be like stumbling

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Speaker 1: upon riches.

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Speaker 5: It became kind of addictive. I mean, there's so many

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Speaker 5: species defined, and some of them are quite difficult to access,

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Speaker 5: and so it took me a long time to actually

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Speaker 5: travel around and see all of the species. But I

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Speaker 5: became really fascinated with how they survive where they do,

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Speaker 5: and the ecology behind them and the story behind all

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Speaker 5: of that. Living on the edge of the welds drissed Desert,

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Speaker 5: the Ota Kama Desert.

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Speaker 1: There's a book of photographs by the owners of the

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Speaker 1: Cactus Store in Los Angeles called Xerophile, and it describes

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Speaker 1: this pursuit beautifully. Cactus hunters, it says, are quote willing

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Speaker 1: to spend months planning a trip across the globe, weeks

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Speaker 1: driving town dirt roads, hiking across mountaintops, and riding on muleback,

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Speaker 1: all the hope of finding that one habitat, that one

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Speaker 1: plant they are seeking. Often they don't find it, so

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Speaker 1: they keep looking, or return the next year, or never leave.

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Speaker 1: It describes Burger perfectly.

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Speaker 5: It takes a lot of internal motivation to actually be like, right, Okay,

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Speaker 5: I want to plan a trip to Peru, and I

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Speaker 5: want to go to this isolated mountain range, and I

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Speaker 5: have to learn Spanish or you know, work out what

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Speaker 5: I need to do to get there. And it's not

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Speaker 5: always easy. It takes a lot of effort, and it

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Speaker 5: costs a lot to go and see a lot of

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Speaker 5: these plants and habitats. So you have to be really

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Speaker 5: passionate about it and really genuinely interested in habitat any

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Speaker 5: college or else, you just won't have the motivation to

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Speaker 5: go and do it.

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Speaker 1: It's that last part, the very real risk of failure,

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Speaker 1: that makes cactus hunting more than just a peculiar hobby

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Speaker 1: for me.

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Speaker 5: The fun in it is it's kind of like a

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Speaker 5: It's like it's like a parking moon haunt. It's like

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Speaker 5: a treasure haunt. Set of thing. You know, you got

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Speaker 5: looking for something difficult, you find it gives you a

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Speaker 5: lot of satisfaction.

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Speaker 1: For some, that satisfaction is addictive, and it can be

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Speaker 1: taken too far. In the federal government, the US Fish

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Speaker 1: and Wildlife Service employs criminal investigators, undercover cops who scour

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Speaker 1: the murky underworld of wildlife crime in search of people

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Speaker 1: who are well, perhaps a little too addicted. One of

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Speaker 1: those investigators is Albert Gonzalez.

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Speaker 6: I'm a special agent based in Opaso, Texas.

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Speaker 1: By twenty fourteen, he'd been working as a special agent

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Speaker 1: with the US Fish and Wildlife Service for nearly a decade.

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Speaker 1: That September, Gonzales got a call from a Customs and

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Speaker 1: Border Patrol agent in Denver. The agent had been surveilling

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Speaker 1: a ring of plant fanatics in Russia and Eastern Europe.

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Speaker 6: You know, cactus doesn't occur everywhere else. That's what makes

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Speaker 6: it so sought after by the from Europe and that

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Speaker 6: part of the world, because cactus doesn't exist there.

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Speaker 1: These men, he said, had traveled many times to the

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Speaker 1: southwestern deserts of the US, posting photos and GPS coordinates

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Speaker 1: of rare cacti. This itself wasn't unusual. Many cactus hunters

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Speaker 1: use this information to build their itineraries, a way to

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Speaker 1: set travel plants. But the agent in Denver thought, this list,

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Speaker 1: there's something fishy about this. The coordinates, he believed, were

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Speaker 1: more than just a cactus nerd sightseeing guide. They were

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Speaker 1: a hit list.

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Speaker 6: Our ultimate goal is to protect our resources. Some of

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Speaker 6: these species of cacti. There are so few left in

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Speaker 6: the wild that any disturbance, any type of threat to

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Speaker 6: them could make them go extinct. The thought process of well,

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Speaker 6: it's just a plant, it'll grow back. In many cases,

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Speaker 6: on some of these species, it won't. I'll never see

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Speaker 6: it again.

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Speaker 1: A few months later, a customs agent noticed that one

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Speaker 1: of these collectors, a Slovak man named Igor Drob, was

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Speaker 1: planning a trip to the American Southwest. He posted an

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Speaker 1: advertisement online inviting other cactus lovers to join. Now that's

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Speaker 1: when Special Agent Gonzales got the call. A group of

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Speaker 1: five hobbyists Polish, Slovak, and Russian would be arriving at

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Speaker 1: Lax soon. The FEDS would need to keep a close

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Speaker 1: eye on them.

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Speaker 6: We followed them through about six different states for a

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Speaker 6: period about two weeks. Sometimes we would have to leap

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Speaker 6: frog from one location to another. It was challenging to

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Speaker 6: keep up with them.

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Speaker 1: Everything that follows we know thanks to public court documents.

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Speaker 1: At Immigration, the five men are questioned. They show officials

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Speaker 1: they're a itinerary three weeks of camping with Stops and

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Speaker 1: Joshua Tree, White Sands, Arches, Brice and Monument. Immigration waves

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Speaker 1: them through, but not before an agent makes note of

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Speaker 1: a paper they're carrying showing the GPS coordinates and the

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Speaker 1: scientific names of cacti. One of the passports belongs to

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Speaker 1: a Russian named Yevguina Safronov. In twenty eleven, he visited

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Speaker 1: the US and made a similar road trip, posting a

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Speaker 1: travel blog of his favorite plants. At Lax, the men

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Speaker 1: rent a white Chevy Tahoe. Gonzalez notes the plate number

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Speaker 1: seven ff X two three four and quickly alerts the

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Speaker 1: National Park Service. Four days later, two agents find the

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Speaker 1: vehicle outside of Benson, Arizona, parked on a dusty, desolate

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Speaker 1: stretch of road. Years earlier, Igor Drob had visited this

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Speaker 1: exact spot on a check website. He had recorded finding

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Speaker 1: Mammillaria hedarei and faro cactus was Lendsieye. The little Nipple

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Speaker 1: and candy Barrel cactus, respectively. The two special agents, dressed

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Speaker 1: under cover, pull off to the side of the road.

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Speaker 1: One steps out of the vehicle, and, pretending to be

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Speaker 1: a fellow cactus hunter, approaches the men. The tourists don't

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Speaker 1: seem bothered, squatting their faces pointed to the dirt. They're

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Speaker 1: just too busy snapping photographs. One of the men is

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Speaker 1: friendly enough to approach the agent and say that they're

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Speaker 1: quote looking for flowering cacti. The agent smiles and nods.

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Speaker 1: She's small talks discussing cacti and snakes before ambling back

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Speaker 1: to her truck. She and her partner wait until the

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Speaker 1: men motor off, a plume of dust rising behind them.

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Speaker 1: When the area clears, the special agent steps out and

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Speaker 1: begins scouring the landscape, looking for any signs of wrongdoing.

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Speaker 1: In a place like Bens in Arizona, temperatures easily reach

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Speaker 1: ninety degrees fahrenheit in May. In that heat, the exterior

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Speaker 1: of a cactus will look mat and dry. But when

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Speaker 1: the agents approach where the tourists had been tramping, they

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Speaker 1: find a cactus, but it's shimmering under the desert sun.

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Speaker 1: The cactus pads appear bright and moist, clear signs that

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Speaker 1: somebody had sliced off a piece.

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Speaker 6: Some plants, if they're damage like that, they die.

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Speaker 1: The agents return to their truck and begin writing down

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Speaker 1: case notes. The tourists had stolen a seed pod. This

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Speaker 1: patch of desert is no longer just a great place

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Speaker 1: for sight seeing. It's a I'm seeing. In the hyper

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Speaker 1: obsessed world of cactus hunters, it's not unusual to use

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Speaker 1: GPS coordinates to track down rare plants. The trouble, Steffan

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Speaker 1: Burger tells us is when that information is exploited.

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Speaker 5: When I went to Mexico, I was given some really

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Speaker 5: known localities for certain types of plants, and it was

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Speaker 5: just starkly obvious that plants had been taken from the habitat.

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Speaker 5: I mean, you can see the holes in the ground

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Speaker 5: for the habitats that I've been to many many times.

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Speaker 5: You can see changes, you can see plants just basically disappear,

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Speaker 5: and you're pretty much, yeah, you're just seeing holes in

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Speaker 5: the ground with the remains of root systems kind of

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Speaker 5: hanging out of the earth.

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Speaker 1: For a cactus hunter, Lake Burger, who may spend lots

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Speaker 1: of time and money traveling to see just one type

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Speaker 1: of plant. This is frustrating. He recalls one time searching

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Speaker 1: for a rare cactus in Mexico.

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Speaker 5: When it was discovered it was highly poached. That was

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Speaker 5: just flocks of people going there taking the plants, and yeah,

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Speaker 5: it was more or less wiped out. It's very, very

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Speaker 5: difficult to go there and find any plants.

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Speaker 6: At all there.

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Speaker 1: But despite the setback, he was still hungry to see it.

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Speaker 6: I got put.

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Speaker 5: In contact with someone, and the guy who gave me

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Speaker 5: the information was like, he knows where there's another planet.

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Speaker 5: It's not near the top locality, but you know, I

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Speaker 5: must warn you that he is a poacher. And I

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Speaker 5: was like, okay, well, look I really want to see

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Speaker 5: this plan. And so he ended up going to this

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Speaker 5: really kind of sketchy part of Tamil Leipis, which was,

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Speaker 5: you know, it's got a reputation for me, just full

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Speaker 5: on Cartel Marcota territory in Mexico, and we were just

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Speaker 5: in the middle of nowhere, and this guy met us

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Speaker 5: on the side of the highway on his motorbike and

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Speaker 5: he was the poacher. He basically walked us through this

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Speaker 5: kind of sclerophytic scrub land. I mean, we must have

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Speaker 5: seen over twenty plants in about forty minutes or so

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Speaker 5: walking around.

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Speaker 1: It dawned on Burger that when it comes to cactus hunting,

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Speaker 1: poachers are often a step ahead of hobbyists and scientists.

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Speaker 5: I just couldn't believe it that we were actually seeing

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Speaker 5: so many of this species and habitat because it's just such,

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Speaker 5: you know, scarce information about it. It's so highly endangered.

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Speaker 5: And I started asking him questions about how the poaching

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Speaker 5: things work, you know, because I noticed there were some

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Speaker 5: holes in some of the places that we went to,

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Speaker 5: and he's, oh, they were the biggest ones, like the

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Speaker 5: biggest ones. He had taken and sold them and he made,

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Speaker 5: you know, for him a lot of money in Mexico,

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Speaker 5: you know. And he was just like, Yeah, I couldn't

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Speaker 5: believe ho much mine I made out of just something

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Speaker 5: that grows in my backyard.

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Speaker 1: Essentially, that's how so many of us see plants, at

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Speaker 1: least when you're plant blind, just as some thing growing

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Speaker 1: out in the backyard. And frankly, that kind of attitude

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Speaker 1: makes rare plants easier to exploit, especially when you're in

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Speaker 1: a rough patch yourself.

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Speaker 5: He grows in such a poor part of Mexico on

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Speaker 5: somewhere that's been just oh, you know, extorted by the

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Speaker 5: nacos and stuff. And he saw the numbers declining after

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Speaker 5: he was taking them, when he's like, oh, he expected

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Speaker 5: the next year for that to be an abundant supply

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Speaker 5: of cacti a game, but it's just not like that,

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Speaker 5: because you know, they take decades to reproduce, and especially

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Speaker 5: to grow and produce new plants.

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Speaker 1: Berger realized that this poacher was just a poor guy

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Speaker 1: trying to make ends meet, which was kind of hard

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Speaker 1: to come to terms with because as a cactus lover

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Speaker 1: and a cactus hunter, not that takes the wind out

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Speaker 1: of your sails, like seeing the environment you love torn apart.

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Speaker 5: It's great to see a lot of plants in localities

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Speaker 5: and things like that, but if you see any kind

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Speaker 5: of harm or destruction, it just kind of taints the

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Speaker 5: whole experience. So, you know, that's what got me interested

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Speaker 5: in conservation in the beginning, because I could just see

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Speaker 5: the evidence there of the plants being exploited. Essentially, I mean,

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Speaker 5: there's animals and insects that rely on that plant for

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Speaker 5: a food source, for example. So they're part of a

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Speaker 5: food chain.

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Speaker 2: You know.

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Speaker 5: The pollen in a flower is right at the very

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Speaker 5: very base of the food chain that supports us as humans,

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Speaker 5: you know, and it comes from a plant flower most

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Speaker 5: of the time. So they're parts of ecosystems, and taking

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Speaker 5: them out of habitat is throwing all of that, of course,

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Speaker 5: and reducing the amount of biodiversity out there.

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Speaker 1: Coaching takes a toll. Cactive provide food and for at

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Speaker 1: least twenty five species of wild animal, including deer and coyote.

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Speaker 1: They're necessary for the survival of multiple pollinators, and they

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Speaker 1: are a major habitat for ants, the food source for

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Speaker 1: so many desert dwellers. Every plant that is ripped from

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Speaker 1: the land hurts the survival of every species that relies

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Speaker 1: on it. And these plants they don't grow back quickly.

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Speaker 1: You may remember doctor Barberaketch from our first episode.

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Speaker 7: When you do this, you basically affect the number of

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Speaker 7: seedlings and new plants that are going to get into

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Speaker 7: your population. These plants grow very slowly. Some plants, for example,

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Speaker 7: like the sawara, they don't start producing flour until they're

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00:19:55,885 --> 00:19:58,405
Speaker 7: thirteen years old.

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Speaker 1: And some species only grow in hyperlocal areas.

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Speaker 7: As in many other cases of people getting obsessed with

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00:20:05,725 --> 00:20:10,165
Speaker 7: things is the rarity of them. These plants, like cactus,

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Speaker 7: more than seventy percent of Mexican species are found in

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Speaker 7: Mexico and nowhere else in the world, and they tend

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Speaker 7: to occur in very small areas and sometimes also in

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Speaker 7: very small numbers.

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Speaker 1: With such small numbers, sometimes one poacher can wipe out

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Speaker 1: an entire genus in one afternoon, and that's prompted scientists

316
00:20:33,125 --> 00:20:36,725
Speaker 1: to become tight lipped with new discoveries, to act kind

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00:20:36,765 --> 00:20:40,565
Speaker 1: of like a botanical illuminati, guarding the secrets of the

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Speaker 1: most vulnerable species. Here's an example. It's nineteen fifty two

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Speaker 1: and a botanist named doctor Norman Bog is visiting the

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Speaker 1: Crosby Hotel in Siouda Drecuna, a Mexican city across the

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Speaker 1: border from Del Rio, Texas. There at the hotel, doctor

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Speaker 1: Bog spies a tiny cactus growing in a coffee can.

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Speaker 1: It's a pigmy sized specimen nested in pebbles. It resembles

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Speaker 1: a cloud of brilliant white stars, a corona of Fuschia

325
00:21:15,205 --> 00:21:19,805
Speaker 1: flowers with a Yoki centers. Doctor Bok's never seen a

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Speaker 1: cactus like this before, so he asks the hotel's owner

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Speaker 1: how she got it. She shrugs and tells a story

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Speaker 1: of a mining prospector some guy who had found it

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Speaker 1: while traping through the deserts of Coah Wheela. For a

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Speaker 1: cactus expert, this was not useful information. Coaheela is the

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Speaker 1: third largest state in Mexico. It's deserts are some of

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Speaker 1: the most inhospitable parts of the country. But Bok thanks

333
00:21:47,085 --> 00:21:50,205
Speaker 1: the proprietor, takes a few photos and vows to look

334
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Speaker 1: for this new cactus. Little does he know he just

335
00:21:53,965 --> 00:21:58,725
Speaker 1: committed to finding the holy Grail, because for the next

336
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Speaker 1: four decades, botanists search and search and search. Two of

337
00:22:04,805 --> 00:22:08,525
Speaker 1: the most dominant cactus hunters alive claim it holds quote

338
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Speaker 1: undisputed first place in the Great North American cactus Hunt,

339
00:22:14,085 --> 00:22:18,605
Speaker 1: but the desert is unkind. During one mission, more than

340
00:22:18,685 --> 00:22:22,085
Speaker 1: fifty people fanned the sand together in search of the plant.

341
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Speaker 3: No luck.

342
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Speaker 1: For forty four years, the little cactus eludes discovery, and

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Speaker 1: like any treasure hunt, failure causes most people to give up,

344
00:22:34,525 --> 00:22:37,845
Speaker 1: but for a select few, the dead ends just fuel

345
00:22:37,925 --> 00:22:43,045
Speaker 1: their desire to find it. Two men hell bent on

346
00:22:43,125 --> 00:22:46,765
Speaker 1: tracking the plant down are botanist Jonis Luti and George Hinton.

347
00:22:47,845 --> 00:22:51,125
Speaker 1: In nineteen ninety six, they started exploring the cattle farms

348
00:22:51,125 --> 00:22:54,565
Speaker 1: near the Sierra del Carmen, close to the US border. There,

349
00:22:54,605 --> 00:22:58,405
Speaker 1: among yucca and agave and lowing cows, they stumble upon

350
00:22:58,965 --> 00:23:02,965
Speaker 1: the sasquatch of cacti and they make an agreement with

351
00:23:02,965 --> 00:23:07,125
Speaker 1: one another they will keep the plants location a secret.

352
00:23:09,045 --> 00:23:12,205
Speaker 5: When a plant gets discovered, the describing author has to

353
00:23:12,245 --> 00:23:16,405
Speaker 5: put down a type, locality, and this can be really general.

354
00:23:16,405 --> 00:23:18,685
Speaker 5: It can be as general as a certain state or

355
00:23:18,765 --> 00:23:22,045
Speaker 5: province from a country. You'll find that there's a lot

356
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Speaker 5: of cacta that have been described by somebody, but they

357
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Speaker 5: haven't populations haven't been found since.

358
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Speaker 1: As Paul Haxey rates in The Cactus Explorer, the discovery

359
00:23:30,765 --> 00:23:34,285
Speaker 1: and subsequent secrecy surrounding its habitat had earned it a

360
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Speaker 1: near mythical status for cactus explorers.

361
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Speaker 5: In Mexico, plants and plant distributions especially is such a

362
00:23:41,645 --> 00:23:44,165
Speaker 5: double edged sword. On the one hand, we want to

363
00:23:44,205 --> 00:23:46,685
Speaker 5: know where these plants are so we can monitor them

364
00:23:46,725 --> 00:23:50,165
Speaker 5: and introduce them into cultivation in ethical way, so people

365
00:23:50,205 --> 00:23:52,445
Speaker 5: can have them. But you know, then there's other people

366
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Speaker 5: who will exploit that information because these plants, as probably

367
00:23:57,205 --> 00:24:01,165
Speaker 5: many people know, have become highly valuable, especially plants that

368
00:24:01,165 --> 00:24:04,245
Speaker 5: are not common in cultivation or take a long time

369
00:24:04,325 --> 00:24:07,365
Speaker 5: to reach mature. Do you like someone can take one

370
00:24:07,405 --> 00:24:11,445
Speaker 5: hundred years to reach adacent size and it has really

371
00:24:11,605 --> 00:24:17,005
Speaker 5: attractive characteristics that you can't replicate in cultivation. So having

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00:24:17,005 --> 00:24:20,925
Speaker 5: the information in the wrong hands can lead to exploitation

373
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Speaker 5: of these species.

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Speaker 1: And some secrets are doomed to be revealed rather than

375
00:24:27,965 --> 00:24:31,285
Speaker 1: quell the search. The discovery of the plant called Luti's

376
00:24:31,325 --> 00:24:35,605
Speaker 1: pin pushing cactus or Mammalaria lutii fan, the desires of

377
00:24:35,685 --> 00:24:41,045
Speaker 1: obsessives cactus hunter's legal and illegal alike became more desperate

378
00:24:41,125 --> 00:24:44,525
Speaker 1: to see the plant. Today, it's become easier to find

379
00:24:44,565 --> 00:24:49,325
Speaker 1: Mammalaria luti in the market. Two legally cloned specimens spawned

380
00:24:49,365 --> 00:24:52,365
Speaker 1: a cottage industry, with the little guys selling for around

381
00:24:52,365 --> 00:24:57,045
Speaker 1: twenty bucks apiece, But in nature the plant remains rare.

382
00:24:58,365 --> 00:25:02,405
Speaker 1: The only thing protecting the wild population from extinction is

383
00:25:02,445 --> 00:25:08,245
Speaker 1: its very elusiveness. It would take only one irresponsible cactus

384
00:25:08,325 --> 00:25:12,125
Speaker 1: hunter somebody willing to leak the GPS coordinates of the

385
00:25:12,125 --> 00:25:16,525
Speaker 1: plant's location to risk this rare cactus falling into the

386
00:25:16,565 --> 00:25:20,965
Speaker 1: hands of the wrong people, people like yev Guinea sophrona.

387
00:25:32,325 --> 00:25:34,885
Speaker 1: About five hundred and sixty miles from the first crime

388
00:25:34,885 --> 00:25:38,765
Speaker 1: scene in Benson, Arizona, the white Chevy Tahoe turns up again,

389
00:25:39,525 --> 00:25:42,725
Speaker 1: this time at Big Bend National Park in South Texas.

390
00:25:43,965 --> 00:25:48,285
Speaker 1: The area lays claim to some stunning vistas, towering rock cliffs,

391
00:25:48,485 --> 00:25:52,885
Speaker 1: muddy dykes, the meandering Rio Grande. For ye have Guinea

392
00:25:52,885 --> 00:25:57,565
Speaker 1: sifrona of Big Bend is familiar territory. Years earlier, he

393
00:25:57,605 --> 00:26:00,205
Speaker 1: had visited the national park and had posted more than

394
00:26:00,285 --> 00:26:04,925
Speaker 1: fifty photos online of the sites, but mostly photos of cacti.

395
00:26:06,525 --> 00:26:10,965
Speaker 1: Little does he know a federal agent is tailing. Here's

396
00:26:11,045 --> 00:26:13,245
Speaker 1: Special Agent Albert Gonzalez again.

397
00:26:14,285 --> 00:26:17,685
Speaker 6: It was challenging because in many areas that we were

398
00:26:17,925 --> 00:26:21,805
Speaker 6: attempting to watch them, it was just them. A wide

399
00:26:21,805 --> 00:26:25,245
Speaker 6: open field and it was just them, so we had

400
00:26:25,285 --> 00:26:28,845
Speaker 6: to be cognisant of that. We kept our distance. It

401
00:26:28,925 --> 00:26:30,925
Speaker 6: was a shot in the dark because many times we

402
00:26:30,925 --> 00:26:34,885
Speaker 6: weren't in a position to have up close visual surveillance

403
00:26:34,885 --> 00:26:37,925
Speaker 6: on them.

404
00:26:38,085 --> 00:26:41,445
Speaker 1: On Maverick Road near Rattlesnake, mountain, a ranger finds their

405
00:26:41,485 --> 00:26:47,445
Speaker 1: car and follows them deeper into the desert. Now Big

406
00:26:47,485 --> 00:26:50,645
Speaker 1: Bend is larger than the state of Rhode Island, it's

407
00:26:50,685 --> 00:26:54,005
Speaker 1: an easy place to hide, so from a high point,

408
00:26:54,205 --> 00:26:57,125
Speaker 1: the ranger watches the men through a pair of binoculars.

409
00:26:59,405 --> 00:27:02,805
Speaker 1: From a distance, he sees them examining the ground, but

410
00:27:02,885 --> 00:27:06,365
Speaker 1: he can't quite make out exactly what they're doing, so

411
00:27:06,445 --> 00:27:13,405
Speaker 1: he waits. When the tahoe tears away, the ranger descends

412
00:27:13,445 --> 00:27:16,885
Speaker 1: onto a patch of a Puntia humafusa, or prickly pear cacti.

413
00:27:18,325 --> 00:27:21,805
Speaker 1: The prickly pear is a flat and fleshy cactus with

414
00:27:21,965 --> 00:27:26,245
Speaker 1: eye popping pink flowers. It resembles a mound of discarded

415
00:27:26,285 --> 00:27:29,645
Speaker 1: ping pong paddles, and its fruit you may be familiar with,

416
00:27:30,005 --> 00:27:34,445
Speaker 1: tastes a bit like watermelon flavored bubblegum, and although a

417
00:27:34,485 --> 00:27:37,445
Speaker 1: prickly pear is in margaritas and other foods, it is

418
00:27:37,525 --> 00:27:40,685
Speaker 1: illegal to remove from federal land like Big ben National Park.

419
00:27:41,525 --> 00:27:44,405
Speaker 1: So the ranger follows a tire tracks and their footprints

420
00:27:44,765 --> 00:27:48,885
Speaker 1: until he comes upon a prickly pear, and, like the

421
00:27:48,925 --> 00:27:53,325
Speaker 1: agents in Arizona, he finds the same bright sheen of

422
00:27:53,365 --> 00:27:58,005
Speaker 1: a freshly injured cactus. The ranger gets back in his

423
00:27:58,045 --> 00:28:01,125
Speaker 1: car and tries to catch up with the tahoe. Later

424
00:28:01,205 --> 00:28:04,725
Speaker 1: that night, as the sun skates the horizon, the ranger

425
00:28:04,765 --> 00:28:07,365
Speaker 1: pitches a tent at the same campsite as the tourists

426
00:28:07,885 --> 00:28:12,005
Speaker 1: and begins to secretly snap photos of his neighbors. He

427
00:28:12,085 --> 00:28:14,605
Speaker 1: grabs a shot of that slip of paper with GPS

428
00:28:14,725 --> 00:28:19,405
Speaker 1: coordinates he watches as you be Guinea Siffronov knife in hand,

429
00:28:19,845 --> 00:28:22,405
Speaker 1: stuffs the pad of a prickly pair into an empty

430
00:28:22,445 --> 00:28:23,925
Speaker 1: box of Uncle Ben's rice.

431
00:28:25,645 --> 00:28:25,965
Speaker 7: As J.

432
00:28:26,205 --> 00:28:29,925
Speaker 1: Weston Pippen reports in the Atlantic that ranger would do

433
00:28:30,045 --> 00:28:36,725
Speaker 1: more than surveil their every move under the cover of darkness.

434
00:28:37,005 --> 00:28:40,325
Speaker 1: He would slink toward their vehicle. He'd bend down as

435
00:28:40,325 --> 00:28:44,245
Speaker 1: if tying a shoe, and then quietly stick a GPS

436
00:28:44,285 --> 00:28:52,085
Speaker 1: tracker under their car. Satellites follow the men's every move.

437
00:28:52,165 --> 00:28:56,325
Speaker 1: Now soon the GPS shows them in Utah, exploring Arches

438
00:28:56,445 --> 00:29:01,085
Speaker 1: National Park, where special agents are waiting. They watch the

439
00:29:01,165 --> 00:29:04,485
Speaker 1: men wander a trailhead, occasionally bending over as if they

440
00:29:04,565 --> 00:29:08,205
Speaker 1: keep dropping some but when the agents comb the site,

441
00:29:08,645 --> 00:29:13,965
Speaker 1: they find a hole an entire prickly par cactus has

442
00:29:14,045 --> 00:29:15,005
Speaker 1: been uprooted.

443
00:29:15,685 --> 00:29:17,965
Speaker 6: One of the requests that we had from the US

444
00:29:17,965 --> 00:29:21,925
Speaker 6: Attorney's Office was if we had the opportunity to approach

445
00:29:21,965 --> 00:29:27,405
Speaker 6: them in a normal encounter, you know, to make them

446
00:29:27,485 --> 00:29:29,765
Speaker 6: aware that taking anything out of a national park is

447
00:29:29,805 --> 00:29:33,285
Speaker 6: against federal law. At one of the national parks, we

448
00:29:33,285 --> 00:29:37,045
Speaker 6: were able to arrange a contact with the park rangers

449
00:29:37,605 --> 00:29:40,605
Speaker 6: to talk with them casually saying, you know, hey, we

450
00:29:40,725 --> 00:29:44,685
Speaker 6: realize you're here visiting. You may not be aware of

451
00:29:45,245 --> 00:29:49,165
Speaker 6: our laws, but it is illegal to take anything out

452
00:29:49,165 --> 00:29:52,845
Speaker 6: of the national parks. You can look, but don't touch,

453
00:29:53,285 --> 00:29:58,885
Speaker 6: don't remove. They acknowledged that they understood that, so they.

454
00:29:58,765 --> 00:30:02,885
Speaker 1: Were made aware, and even with this awareness, the tourists

455
00:30:03,005 --> 00:30:07,205
Speaker 1: continue to pluck the plants from the parks. The Feds

456
00:30:07,605 --> 00:30:13,325
Speaker 1: have seen enough that Juna lax. The men are at

457
00:30:13,325 --> 00:30:18,565
Speaker 1: the Aeroflot check in desk bound for Moscow. Special agents

458
00:30:18,565 --> 00:30:21,405
Speaker 1: with the US Fish and Wildlife Service are waiting for them.

459
00:30:22,645 --> 00:30:26,205
Speaker 1: They open and search the men's luggage. In Sofronov's bag,

460
00:30:26,725 --> 00:30:31,605
Speaker 1: they discover thirty four cacti, twenty five cactus fruits, and

461
00:30:31,725 --> 00:30:36,685
Speaker 1: thirty six cactus seed packs. The specimens are stuffed in

462
00:30:36,765 --> 00:30:40,765
Speaker 1: nylon stockings, in trail mix containers, and even an old

463
00:30:40,805 --> 00:30:45,805
Speaker 1: bag of Crispy creams, and of course that one in

464
00:30:45,885 --> 00:30:52,485
Speaker 1: a box of Uncle Ben's. Their loot runs the gamut,

465
00:30:52,965 --> 00:30:57,845
Speaker 1: cotton top, hedgehog, turk's head, and fish hook cactus, among

466
00:30:57,965 --> 00:31:02,525
Speaker 1: many others. Sofronov seems to have the whole desert in

467
00:31:02,565 --> 00:31:08,485
Speaker 1: his suitcase, all of it illegal now. According to Convention

468
00:31:08,605 --> 00:31:12,005
Speaker 1: seventeen of the International Trade and Endangered Species of Wild

469
00:31:12,045 --> 00:31:15,965
Speaker 1: Fauna and Flora better known as Sydie's many of these

470
00:31:16,005 --> 00:31:20,805
Speaker 1: plants are listed as Appendix two. That is, at risk plants,

471
00:31:21,325 --> 00:31:25,005
Speaker 1: it's illegal to harvest them without a permit, doubly so

472
00:31:25,605 --> 00:31:33,405
Speaker 1: on federal property. Sophronov is sauntering down the Arrow flot

473
00:31:33,485 --> 00:31:36,885
Speaker 1: jetway when police catch up to him. Officials ask if

474
00:31:36,885 --> 00:31:39,685
Speaker 1: he has any plants on him, and he shakes his head.

475
00:31:40,685 --> 00:31:44,365
Speaker 1: After pressing, he admits that he had packed some pine cones.

476
00:31:45,525 --> 00:31:51,965
Speaker 1: The police press harder, Sophronov starts to sweat. Finally he breaks.

477
00:31:52,845 --> 00:31:55,045
Speaker 1: He admits that he had no permits for the sixty

478
00:31:55,085 --> 00:31:59,085
Speaker 1: plus cacti hidden in his luggage. Customs and Border Patrol

479
00:31:59,285 --> 00:32:02,845
Speaker 1: escort him out of the airport. He's detained and his

480
00:32:02,965 --> 00:32:13,005
Speaker 1: passport is confiscated. Months later, Sophrona pleads guilty before a

481
00:32:13,045 --> 00:32:17,085
Speaker 1: magistrate judge. His crime carries a recommendation of up to

482
00:32:17,125 --> 00:32:21,605
Speaker 1: six months in jail, but instead of serving hard time,

483
00:32:22,245 --> 00:32:29,645
Speaker 1: he's fined five hundred and twenty five dollars. So yeah,

484
00:32:30,285 --> 00:32:35,925
Speaker 1: anti climactic, huh. All that detective work, all that following

485
00:32:35,965 --> 00:32:40,325
Speaker 1: Sophrona around North America and for what a slap on

486
00:32:40,365 --> 00:32:45,445
Speaker 1: the wrist. That's the problem we're facing because these mild

487
00:32:45,485 --> 00:32:52,445
Speaker 1: penalties detern nobody. They don't stop obsessives, and as we'll

488
00:32:52,485 --> 00:32:58,205
Speaker 1: soon learn, they don't stop organized criminals, mobsters, cartels, and

489
00:32:58,285 --> 00:33:02,045
Speaker 1: government leaders from dipping their toes into plant crime either.

490
00:33:04,405 --> 00:33:08,165
Speaker 1: Coming up the session defined rare Plants leads one of

491
00:33:08,205 --> 00:33:11,165
Speaker 1: our guests to stare down the barrel of an AK

492
00:33:11,285 --> 00:33:11,925
Speaker 1: forty seven.

493
00:33:12,205 --> 00:33:15,285
Speaker 3: These figures just ran to us, all their machine guns,

494
00:33:15,365 --> 00:33:19,165
Speaker 3: bandanas on their heads, and obviously not recommending the experience

495
00:33:19,205 --> 00:33:20,805
Speaker 3: because you know you're gonna die.

496
00:33:21,245 --> 00:33:24,405
Speaker 1: I'm Summer rain Oaks. Join us again next time for

497
00:33:24,565 --> 00:33:29,165
Speaker 1: Bad Seeds. Bad Seeds is a production of School of

498
00:33:29,245 --> 00:33:33,405
Speaker 1: Humans and iHeart Podcasts. I'm your host Summer rain Oaks.

499
00:33:34,045 --> 00:33:37,485
Speaker 1: Lucas Riley is our writer, Gabby Watts is our producer,

500
00:33:37,765 --> 00:33:40,965
Speaker 1: and Amelia Brock is our senior producer. Fact Checking is

501
00:33:40,965 --> 00:33:44,805
Speaker 1: by Savannah Hugily and Zoe Farrow. Original music is by

502
00:33:44,805 --> 00:33:49,845
Speaker 1: Claire Campbell. Sound design and scores by Jesse Niswanger. Development

503
00:33:49,925 --> 00:33:53,765
Speaker 1: was by Brian Lavin and Jacob Selzer. Special thanks for

504
00:33:53,805 --> 00:33:57,845
Speaker 1: a voice actor Mike Coscarelli. Our show art is by

505
00:33:57,885 --> 00:34:03,325
Speaker 1: Pam Peacock. Executive producers are Brian Lavin, Elsie Crowley, Brandon Barr,

506
00:34:03,685 --> 00:34:05,845
Speaker 1: Virginia Prescott and Jacob's Elser.

507
00:34:12,605 --> 00:34:13,445
Speaker 6: School of Humans

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00:34:15,165 --> 00:34:15,205
Speaker 5: H