WEBVTT - Episode 5: Business Opportunities 0:00:02.800 --> 0:00:05.960 School of humans. 0:00:10.039 --> 0:00:13.920 It's five in the morning, November twenty fifth, twenty nineteen, 0:00:14.640 --> 0:00:17.720 and Ivonne Guthman, a thirty two year old fisherman from 0:00:17.800 --> 0:00:24.720 Mexico's Baja Peninsula, looks out onto Tortugas Bay. The Pacific 0:00:24.840 --> 0:00:28.680 rolls gently at his feet. The first glimmers of sunrise 0:00:28.760 --> 0:00:33.920 reveal a patchwork of boats on the horizon. The waters 0:00:33.920 --> 0:00:37.920 here are popular among sports fishers. Giant schools of black 0:00:37.960 --> 0:00:41.120 sea bass and fat and yellowtail lure anglers from hundreds 0:00:41.159 --> 0:00:46.000 of miles away. That's what brought Guthman here, and now 0:00:46.240 --> 0:00:50.440 he and five other fishermen prepare their boat and begin 0:00:50.600 --> 0:01:02.400 motoring out onto the water. Destination Isla de Stedros, a 0:01:02.400 --> 0:01:04.920 two hour trip from the docks. The island is a 0:01:05.000 --> 0:01:08.120 rocky spit of land home to just a few thousand people. 0:01:09.240 --> 0:01:12.280 A few years back, Mitsubishi built a company town here 0:01:12.360 --> 0:01:16.560 to store salt. But most locals depend on the fishing industry. 0:01:17.600 --> 0:01:21.360 And then there's the few who rely on the islands well, 0:01:21.600 --> 0:01:30.520 let's just call it the underground economy. The Sinaloa Cartel, 0:01:30.959 --> 0:01:34.400 arguably the most powerful and dangerous drug trafficking syndicate in 0:01:34.440 --> 0:01:39.119 the West, calls Sadros their turf, but the cartel does 0:01:39.160 --> 0:01:42.920 not own a monopoly on these waters. Some drug traffickers 0:01:42.920 --> 0:01:46.319 know SROs as a frontier, a place where small time 0:01:46.400 --> 0:01:50.360 drug runners and splinter groups can get their start. Yvonne 0:01:50.360 --> 0:01:53.880 Gooseman and his fishing buddies they know this, but they're 0:01:53.960 --> 0:01:57.840 fishermen and they stay in their lane, or at least 0:01:58.400 --> 0:02:02.760 that's what they tell people, because on that November day 0:02:03.320 --> 0:02:07.280 they don't cast their lines into the water. Instead, they 0:02:07.320 --> 0:02:11.960 steer their boat toward the northern point of Sadrus. They 0:02:12.000 --> 0:02:17.480 cast anchor slosh onto shore and begun unloading dozens of 0:02:17.560 --> 0:02:22.800 black plastic tubs. Within minutes, they're tossing hundreds of small 0:02:22.919 --> 0:02:27.480 succulents into the boxes, and little do they know they 0:02:27.800 --> 0:02:33.200 are being watched by evening search and rescue teams are 0:02:33.240 --> 0:02:37.240 looking for the fishermen. One is found dead with a 0:02:37.240 --> 0:02:40.640 bullet hole in the back of his head, another alive 0:02:40.680 --> 0:02:45.240 with a gunshot wound to his arm, and Yvonne Gusman well, 0:02:46.160 --> 0:02:51.000 they find him weeks later, his decaying body bloated, bobbing 0:02:51.040 --> 0:02:54.760 on the surface of the bay, his legs tightly wound 0:02:55.000 --> 0:03:02.560 with rope. In this episode, plant poaching collides with organized crime. 0:03:02.960 --> 0:03:07.040 How cartels, mobs, and criminal syndicates might be connected to 0:03:07.200 --> 0:03:16.720 some of your favorite plants. I'm Summer rain Oaks from 0:03:16.840 --> 0:03:22.359 School of Humans and iHeart podcasts. This is bad seeds. 0:03:32.680 --> 0:03:35.960 On is La de Seyros, there's a threatened succulent called 0:03:36.080 --> 0:03:40.320 siempre viva or dudley A pachyphytom. It looks like a 0:03:40.360 --> 0:03:43.680 starry clump of sea an enemies with delicate hints of 0:03:43.720 --> 0:03:47.640 green and chalky white leaves. It's endemic to the island, 0:03:48.040 --> 0:03:52.080 meaning it only grows there, and in recent years in 0:03:52.120 --> 0:03:55.960 East Asia, a single wild Dudleya has been selling for 0:03:56.000 --> 0:03:59.720 two hundred dollars a pop, and that's been attracting people 0:03:59.720 --> 0:04:04.280 who are hungry to make money, including Mexico's drug cartels. 0:04:05.800 --> 0:04:10.560 Criminal activity and criminal networks are often driven by generating 0:04:10.600 --> 0:04:12.200 profit making money. 0:04:12.600 --> 0:04:15.880 You may remember Jenny Felt them from the Wildlife Justice Commission. 0:04:16.279 --> 0:04:19.640 If people are willing to pay high prices for these things, 0:04:20.040 --> 0:04:23.320 criminal networks will want to supply that They will find 0:04:23.360 --> 0:04:27.400 a way to provide that service, regardless of whether it's 0:04:27.440 --> 0:04:28.080 legal or not. 0:04:29.480 --> 0:04:32.599 In fact, this Dudleya has been luring criminals for a 0:04:32.680 --> 0:04:38.040 while now. In twenty seventeen, the news outlet Masnotsios reported 0:04:38.080 --> 0:04:41.320 that the Mexican military had stopped a tractor trailer driven 0:04:41.360 --> 0:04:45.000 by three Korean nationals and a Mexican. When they pride 0:04:45.040 --> 0:04:48.680 opened the back doors, they found nearly five thousand Dudley 0:04:48.680 --> 0:04:53.760 apachef item one million dollars worth of poached succulents, but 0:04:54.000 --> 0:04:58.080 that was small fry. More recently, the plant's been targeted 0:04:58.120 --> 0:05:00.800 by major players in the world of organized crime. 0:05:01.640 --> 0:05:05.200 Yet we had been saying in our own investigations with 0:05:05.279 --> 0:05:10.000 wildlife crime was increasing intersection of wildlife crime with other 0:05:10.080 --> 0:05:13.480 types of crime as well. If there are easy ways 0:05:13.480 --> 0:05:17.240 to make money and ways to summit the regulatory system 0:05:17.279 --> 0:05:21.080 around it, that's when other criminal groups might be interested 0:05:21.120 --> 0:05:25.960 to exploit those networks. 0:05:26.000 --> 0:05:29.800 In other words, organized crime syndicats have been diversifying their 0:05:29.839 --> 0:05:35.880 portfolios beyond drugs. Some cartel's mine iron, others steal gasoline 0:05:35.920 --> 0:05:40.880 and grow avocados. The Cineloa cartel has an alarmingly large 0:05:40.920 --> 0:05:46.279 stake in Mexico's legal seafood industry, and now they're moving 0:05:46.320 --> 0:05:52.039 into succulents. In the case of the missing fishermen, rescuers 0:05:52.040 --> 0:05:55.279 would find two of them alive not far from where 0:05:55.279 --> 0:06:00.200 the succulents grow. One was uninjured, but the other was 0:06:00.240 --> 0:06:04.600 stained in blood, clutching a bullet wound. Not far from them, 0:06:04.800 --> 0:06:08.920 officials found dozens of tubs filled with dudley a pachyphytum, 0:06:09.760 --> 0:06:13.440 and near those bins was the lifeless body of one 0:06:13.480 --> 0:06:20.839 of their friends, faced down on the rocks. The survivors 0:06:20.839 --> 0:06:24.839 told authorities everything that they had been hired by El Creq, 0:06:25.640 --> 0:06:29.440 a sub chapter of the drug cartel. This group, according 0:06:29.480 --> 0:06:33.320 to the Mexican newspaper and Signata, is involved in quote 0:06:33.520 --> 0:06:38.279 drug trafficking, drug dealing, homicides, and illegal marketing of the 0:06:38.360 --> 0:06:44.440 endemic plant siempre viva. The cartelts believed uses its vast 0:06:44.480 --> 0:06:48.360 smuggling network to send these plants abroad with poached dudleya, 0:06:48.480 --> 0:06:52.960 traveling to Tijuana, then LAPAs, then to Mexico City, and 0:06:53.000 --> 0:06:56.400 then onward to China or Korea and onto the windowsills 0:06:56.400 --> 0:07:01.919 of unsuspecting succulent collectors in Reais. The cartels are reportedly 0:07:02.000 --> 0:07:04.919 paid in supplies that can be used to synthesize drugs. 0:07:05.560 --> 0:07:09.360 It's basically a barter system. All of this, if I'm 0:07:09.360 --> 0:07:13.920 being honest, sounds weird. Organized criminals and botany sound like 0:07:14.040 --> 0:07:19.920 such unlikely bedfellows, but the truth is plants launched organized 0:07:19.960 --> 0:07:23.600 crime as we know it. And I'm not talking about 0:07:23.600 --> 0:07:27.240 marijuana or cocaine or all the other plants fueling the 0:07:27.240 --> 0:07:36.120 international drug trade. I'm talking lemons. We're in Sicily the 0:07:36.240 --> 0:07:42.120 nineteenth century and citrus fruits are in high demand. Scientists 0:07:42.200 --> 0:07:45.480 recently discovered that vitamin C and lemons and oranges can 0:07:45.520 --> 0:07:49.440 prevent scurvy, and now the shipping industry is knocking down 0:07:49.480 --> 0:07:52.080 doors to get its hands on some cold, hard fruit. 0:07:55.480 --> 0:07:59.120 In these early days, it turned out that Sicily was 0:07:59.160 --> 0:08:02.440 one of the few places is where oranges and lemon 0:08:02.560 --> 0:08:03.200 were grown. 0:08:04.200 --> 0:08:07.239 That's doctor Ola Olson, by the way. He's a Swedish 0:08:07.280 --> 0:08:10.520 economist and an expert on the weird link between lemons 0:08:10.800 --> 0:08:11.400 and the mob. 0:08:12.240 --> 0:08:16.440 Cecily could relatively quickly then answer to this greater demand, 0:08:16.720 --> 0:08:19.400 and this led to kind of a boosting demand that 0:08:19.880 --> 0:08:24.280 happened in a very weakly institutionalized community. 0:08:24.440 --> 0:08:27.320 In the mid eighteen hundreds. The state was too weak 0:08:27.480 --> 0:08:32.040 to police the people, so rogues, marauders, brigands and highway 0:08:32.080 --> 0:08:36.640 bandits plagued the countryside. Living in Sicily was every man 0:08:36.720 --> 0:08:37.479 for himself. 0:08:37.920 --> 0:08:41.239 The general environment at this time was a very unstable, 0:08:41.520 --> 0:08:44.440 weakly institutions, lot of mistrust in government. 0:08:45.160 --> 0:08:48.440 For lemon farmers, the picking season was a time to 0:08:48.600 --> 0:08:52.959 watch your back. A smart poacher could steal a year's 0:08:53.000 --> 0:08:57.000 harvest in just a night or two. Unable to rely 0:08:57.120 --> 0:09:02.079 on the state for protection, farmers grabbed shotguns and built walls. 0:09:02.679 --> 0:09:07.720 But this wasn't enough. The bandits kept coming, and growers 0:09:07.760 --> 0:09:09.520 began looking for alternatives. 0:09:10.520 --> 0:09:15.640 The people who cultivated citrus then needed to employ different 0:09:15.679 --> 0:09:20.640 types of security personnel, and often this personnel came from 0:09:21.000 --> 0:09:24.960 groups that had established themselves locally as some kind of 0:09:25.000 --> 0:09:28.319 strong men that could bring some order to the kind 0:09:28.360 --> 0:09:32.320 of local chaotic situation. When this sort of state could 0:09:32.320 --> 0:09:34.680 not really do that efficiently. 0:09:36.520 --> 0:09:40.840 Hiring local roughnecks worked, at least for a while. Sicilian 0:09:40.920 --> 0:09:45.199 lemon production actually skyrocketed three thousand percent over a decade. 0:09:45.840 --> 0:09:49.640 Profits stored until the men hired to do the security well, 0:09:49.679 --> 0:09:52.320 they began demanding a bigger piece of the cut. 0:09:52.679 --> 0:09:56.480 So in this institutional vacuum. This is together with this 0:09:56.760 --> 0:10:01.080 huge demand for citrus fruits. That's why we believe that 0:10:01.120 --> 0:10:02.120 the mafia rose. 0:10:04.160 --> 0:10:08.760 The guards watching the lemon groves began organizing and extorting farmers, 0:10:09.160 --> 0:10:12.640 stealing from their trees and selling the lemons in private. 0:10:13.480 --> 0:10:16.840 They actually infiltrated in this way, both acting as middlemen, 0:10:16.960 --> 0:10:21.079 but also acting more directly in the harbors, in the ports, 0:10:21.640 --> 0:10:26.400 monitoring and also squeezing rents out of the trade in 0:10:26.440 --> 0:10:29.840 different stages, so to speak, both directly and indirectly. 0:10:31.200 --> 0:10:40.959 The consequences for not cooperating could be dire. In eighteen 0:10:41.040 --> 0:10:44.959 seventy two, one lemon grove owner, a doctor Golotti, fired 0:10:45.000 --> 0:10:48.760 his warden for stealing fruit. He hired a new guard, 0:10:49.040 --> 0:10:53.040 but then the warden's friends shot the new security. Detailed 0:10:53.120 --> 0:10:58.040 dead menacing letters poured into Golotti's home demanding that he 0:10:58.160 --> 0:11:04.760 rehire his old help. Intimidation, it turns out, worked. The 0:11:04.800 --> 0:11:08.240 middlemen of the lemon trade group together swore oaths and 0:11:08.360 --> 0:11:13.280 soon controlled much of the fruit supply chain. Some mafioso's 0:11:13.480 --> 0:11:16.680 were so well organized that they were able to wrest 0:11:16.760 --> 0:11:22.400 property from the farmers themselves. Eventually, the group expanded beyond fruit. 0:11:22.960 --> 0:11:26.440 They got involved with local sulfur mines, and when Florida 0:11:26.520 --> 0:11:30.000 overtook Sicily as a new citrus hub, these groups up 0:11:30.480 --> 0:11:34.520 well how do I put it new business opportunities. 0:11:34.600 --> 0:11:38.600 Like smuggling of people or smuggling of arms. I would 0:11:38.600 --> 0:11:42.160 say it's pretty is standard that these groups try eventually 0:11:42.200 --> 0:11:46.959 to diversify as potentially one first origin in a sense, 0:11:47.040 --> 0:11:49.640 but then they quickly move on to other goods. 0:11:50.520 --> 0:11:55.160 The point is organized crime and the plant and wildlife trade. 0:11:55.840 --> 0:12:00.920 They are more intertwined than you can imagine. Militant groups 0:12:00.920 --> 0:12:04.840 in East Africa, fron terrorists through ivory poaching the Talipan 0:12:04.920 --> 0:12:09.400 made hundreds of millions controlling Afghanistan's poppy harmist A few 0:12:09.440 --> 0:12:13.640 decades ago, insurgent maoists in Nepal beefed up their wartime 0:12:13.720 --> 0:12:17.360 bank accounts by selling a pricey fungus called cordyceps that 0:12:17.440 --> 0:12:21.680 and I'm not making this up, grows on caterpillars, and 0:12:21.760 --> 0:12:27.640 detective agencies know this. Since twenty seventeen, sting operations staged 0:12:27.640 --> 0:12:31.280 by Interpol's Wildlife Crime Working Groups have arrested more than 0:12:31.480 --> 0:12:36.600 three thousand people, and when the dollars are counted, wildlife 0:12:36.679 --> 0:12:42.360 smuggling only lacks behind human firearms and drug trafficking. The 0:12:42.440 --> 0:12:46.480 United Nations projects that wildlife crime will continue to increase 0:12:46.960 --> 0:12:51.400 five to seven percent each year. And yet, despite this 0:12:51.559 --> 0:12:56.200 long history, and despite the obvious growth, efforts to stop 0:12:56.240 --> 0:12:58.520 it have been pretty wimpy at best. 0:13:00.240 --> 0:13:04.360 Environmental crime isn't prioritized by law enforcement compared to other 0:13:04.400 --> 0:13:06.960 types of crime. You know, it sounds a rasourced compared 0:13:06.960 --> 0:13:10.000 to other crime types. If the penalty is not even 0:13:10.760 --> 0:13:13.960 one tenth of the profit, which is often the case, 0:13:14.280 --> 0:13:16.720 it's just a cost of doing business. At the end 0:13:16.760 --> 0:13:20.000 of the day, will have no impact in stopping or 0:13:20.040 --> 0:13:21.120 deterring that crime. 0:13:22.520 --> 0:13:27.600 Turns out, crime does pay. And if succulents and lemons 0:13:27.640 --> 0:13:31.240 are enough to lure cartels in the mob, just imagine 0:13:31.240 --> 0:13:34.559 what it must be like when an individual plant can 0:13:34.600 --> 0:13:40.240 fetch fifty thousand dollars. A look inside the syndicates stealing 0:13:40.240 --> 0:13:43.560 the most expensive plants on the planet. When we return, 0:13:54.080 --> 0:13:57.280 I want you to close your eyes and imagine. Imagine 0:13:57.280 --> 0:14:01.120 the world sixty five million years yars ago to the 0:14:01.160 --> 0:14:06.920 age of dinosaurs. You're surrounded by jungle. It's muggy, the 0:14:07.000 --> 0:14:12.880 sweat is beating on your brow. Above, winged reptiles sore below. 0:14:13.240 --> 0:14:17.559 Giant beetles and primitive possums scurry through the undergrowth nearby, 0:14:17.920 --> 0:14:20.600 munching on some plants is one of my favorites, the 0:14:20.720 --> 0:14:25.400 long necked Alamosaurus. But I want you to imagine the 0:14:25.440 --> 0:14:30.160 plant life too. It's so green. There are ferns and 0:14:30.280 --> 0:14:34.880 conifers and Ginko's galore, some of the world's first flowering plants. 0:14:35.320 --> 0:14:40.120 Beautiful pink blossoms are taking room. And then you notice 0:14:40.240 --> 0:14:44.000 this strange stubby tree that is. 0:14:43.960 --> 0:14:48.520 A cycad s perfessional is looked like a palm. 0:14:49.000 --> 0:14:52.120 That's Anders Lindstrum. He's a botanist at the nong Nutched 0:14:52.120 --> 0:14:55.680 Tropical Garden in Thailand, home to the largest collection of 0:14:55.760 --> 0:14:58.400 cycads in the world, which I had the pleasure of 0:14:58.480 --> 0:14:59.880 visiting a few years back. 0:15:00.360 --> 0:15:04.000 The main difference between a psycha and the palm is 0:15:04.000 --> 0:15:08.320 I will reproductive structure. Palms have actually flowers, but the 0:15:08.520 --> 0:15:12.480 fertile structure of psychad are looking like pine cones. 0:15:13.080 --> 0:15:16.320 These palmy greens are some of the oldest plants in 0:15:16.360 --> 0:15:17.240 the world. 0:15:17.400 --> 0:15:22.080 They're ancient blond groups that spat back to the dinosaur time, 0:15:22.800 --> 0:15:27.480 and they have survived and actually flourished off to the dinosaur. 0:15:28.400 --> 0:15:34.480 Honders call cycads living fossils, and that means they could 0:15:34.520 --> 0:15:39.760 command a high price a single cycad can fetch upwards 0:15:39.800 --> 0:15:44.239 of one hundred thousand dollars. If you tallied the profits 0:15:44.520 --> 0:15:47.880 from all the cycads poached over the last two decades, 0:15:48.520 --> 0:15:53.240 you'd have more than six hundred million dollars. A lot 0:15:53.280 --> 0:15:57.720 of those thefts have happened in South Africa. That country 0:15:58.000 --> 0:16:02.480 is home to a tenth of all sieicad species. In 0:16:02.520 --> 0:16:06.880 the two decades leading up to twenty fourteen, endangered psycads 0:16:06.920 --> 0:16:11.520 there declined ninety percent. In the words of the Global 0:16:11.520 --> 0:16:14.360 Initiative against Transnational Organized Crime. 0:16:14.400 --> 0:16:19.160 The illicit psycad trade in South Africa has grown so organized, lucrative, 0:16:19.280 --> 0:16:22.200 and harmful that the authorities have identified it as a 0:16:22.240 --> 0:16:27.200 priority wildlife crime alongside rhino, elephant and avaloni poaching. 0:16:28.320 --> 0:16:31.800 In fact, it's gotten so bad that some estimates suggest 0:16:31.880 --> 0:16:35.920 that psychads are now the most endangered living organism in 0:16:36.000 --> 0:16:40.320 the world. In some parts of South Africa, the rarest 0:16:40.360 --> 0:16:44.520 wild cycads are now microchipped just in case they're ever stolen, 0:16:45.720 --> 0:16:49.800 but thefts continue. One allure is, of course their rarity, 0:16:50.160 --> 0:16:52.080 but also their longevity. 0:16:53.200 --> 0:16:55.520 Because they grows so slow, you can keep them probably 0:16:55.600 --> 0:16:58.600 your lifetime, in your living room, and they will never 0:16:58.640 --> 0:17:02.320 outgrow your living room, so it's like a piece of 0:17:02.960 --> 0:17:06.639 vintage art or something. The plant you own is one 0:17:06.720 --> 0:17:10.240 hundred or two hundred years old and therefore very expensive. 0:17:10.680 --> 0:17:14.159 So unfortunately, a lot of people see that as an investment. 0:17:14.680 --> 0:17:16.680 They pay a lot of money for these plants, and 0:17:16.720 --> 0:17:19.800 they keep it their role life. In the end of 0:17:19.840 --> 0:17:22.080 their life, they can still sell the plant. Further. 0:17:23.000 --> 0:17:25.960 This desirability prompted the New York Times back in two 0:17:26.000 --> 0:17:29.320 thousand and five to proclaim that psychads were quote the 0:17:29.359 --> 0:17:34.760 botanical equivalent of a garage full of rolls royces. A cult, 0:17:34.760 --> 0:17:37.879 the Time said, has grown up around these plants that 0:17:37.960 --> 0:17:41.399 include a cadre of bad guys who smuggle for profit. 0:17:42.520 --> 0:17:45.879 These crooks are not drug cartels doing plant crime on 0:17:45.920 --> 0:17:50.960 the side. These are full time psycad syndicates, and they're 0:17:51.000 --> 0:17:54.480 doing the dirty work of smuggling these plants overseas with 0:17:54.720 --> 0:17:56.400 devastating consequences. 0:17:57.240 --> 0:17:59.720 An area it has a couple one hundred plants, maybe 0:17:59.720 --> 0:18:02.720 of some specie, and they have been there for ages, 0:18:02.760 --> 0:18:06.120 of course, but then the people coming and poach them, 0:18:06.280 --> 0:18:10.760 and the regeneration is very low. Usually out of three 0:18:10.840 --> 0:18:14.920 four hundred seeds days. Yes, a few percent that actually 0:18:14.960 --> 0:18:18.520 survive into majority. So when you're going to many of 0:18:18.600 --> 0:18:22.879 these populations, if you take out the big plants that 0:18:23.040 --> 0:18:26.240 set the seed and there is no seedlings to start with, 0:18:27.280 --> 0:18:30.880 then the whole population has collapsed. When you take out 0:18:30.880 --> 0:18:35.280 the mature plants, you basically cut the throat of the 0:18:35.320 --> 0:18:36.080 whole population. 0:18:37.560 --> 0:18:40.200 These plants have been part of the Earth's ecosystem since 0:18:40.240 --> 0:18:46.119 the dinosaurs. They've survived mass extinctions and global catastrophes, but 0:18:46.200 --> 0:18:50.040 they may not survive human greed, which is why. In 0:18:50.080 --> 0:18:52.359 two thousand and one, agents with the US Fish and 0:18:52.400 --> 0:18:58.879 Wildlife Service courted one of the psychad syndicates responsible. The 0:18:58.920 --> 0:19:02.360 mission was dubbed Opera Botany. Special agents opened a fake 0:19:02.440 --> 0:19:06.560 business called Hugh Enterprises, and, using aliases, began seeking out 0:19:06.640 --> 0:19:10.040 rare and illegal psycads. Their bids caught the attention of 0:19:10.119 --> 0:19:15.120 smugglers Rolf Bauer and Yonfonfieren in South Africa. The men 0:19:15.200 --> 0:19:18.720 were surprisingly open about how they smuggled endangered cycads into 0:19:18.760 --> 0:19:22.119 the US. They poached the plants from the wild, and 0:19:22.200 --> 0:19:26.480 before transporting them over seas, stripped the cycads of their leaves. 0:19:27.359 --> 0:19:31.919 Naked the endangered cycads were unrecognizable, allowing the smugglers to 0:19:31.960 --> 0:19:37.879 mislabel them fooling customs, and it worked. In a July 0:19:38.000 --> 0:19:41.560 two thousand one shipment, the smugglers flew one hundred and 0:19:41.640 --> 0:19:47.560 fourteen rare Encephalardis Muncii under a different name. In the end, 0:19:47.920 --> 0:19:51.080 more than eight hundred and forty thousand dollars worth of 0:19:51.080 --> 0:19:56.480 illegal cycads came through San Francisco International Airport and then 0:19:57.080 --> 0:20:03.400 came the state. The agents invited the smugglers to Las 0:20:03.520 --> 0:20:07.080 Vegas as a thank you. After a few nights of partying, 0:20:07.320 --> 0:20:09.240 the men got into the car that they were told 0:20:09.280 --> 0:20:12.800 would drive them to the airport for a private flight. Instead, 0:20:13.119 --> 0:20:16.960 they got a visit from the fence. The eye don't mean, 0:20:21.520 --> 0:20:25.240 but cases like this are the exception. Most pycad syndicates 0:20:25.280 --> 0:20:29.240 work from Afar, much like the Mexican cartel enlisting poor fishermen. 0:20:29.520 --> 0:20:32.560 Sycad crooks are now hiring locals to do the poaching. 0:20:33.560 --> 0:20:36.879 But in Southern Africa, the ruse is exposing old fault 0:20:36.880 --> 0:20:40.440 lines of race and class. Most of the ringleaders are 0:20:40.560 --> 0:20:43.720 rich and white, but most of the people on the ground, 0:20:44.000 --> 0:20:46.760 those at the greatest risk of getting busted, are poor 0:20:46.920 --> 0:20:51.240 and black. One organized sycad ring in Zimbabwe, for instance, 0:20:51.400 --> 0:20:55.080 was caught stealing eighty one cycads. More than half of 0:20:55.119 --> 0:20:59.320 the poachers were unemployed locals, and the rates they earned 0:20:59.440 --> 0:21:03.080 were a busy just six dollars for a three thousand 0:21:03.080 --> 0:21:07.720 dollars plant, less than half a percent of the total cut. 0:21:10.640 --> 0:21:14.080 We did dozens of interviews for this podcast, and that's 0:21:14.119 --> 0:21:18.480 been a theme that as bad as poaching is, many 0:21:18.560 --> 0:21:22.320 of the people doing it aren't the ring leaders. Many 0:21:22.359 --> 0:21:26.119 are doing it out of desperation. But Anders has a 0:21:26.160 --> 0:21:28.879 story of how he might be able to break that cycle. 0:21:29.480 --> 0:21:34.440 There was a cyca from China, Cycas debuensis, and they 0:21:34.520 --> 0:21:38.159 said the population was like a thousand plants, and when 0:21:38.200 --> 0:21:40.960 it was described, everyone went in to dig it with 0:21:41.080 --> 0:21:45.040 the help of the locals because they needed money and everything. 0:21:45.600 --> 0:21:48.000 And we went in there and we did an inventory 0:21:48.040 --> 0:21:51.360 of the whatever plants were left in the wild, and 0:21:51.720 --> 0:21:54.280 at the time we had less than one hundred plants left. 0:21:54.800 --> 0:21:57.679 So what was the problem. Why why did the local 0:21:57.920 --> 0:22:01.280 dig the plants? Oh they needed money, right, yeah, everyone 0:22:01.320 --> 0:22:04.560 needs money, But for what This was a village shop 0:22:04.560 --> 0:22:07.800 in the mountain, far away from everything. You can't just 0:22:07.840 --> 0:22:10.520 go to a supermarket and buy a new car or something. 0:22:10.600 --> 0:22:12.960 So what do you need the money for? Oh, the 0:22:13.119 --> 0:22:17.280 kids needed school and the closest school was quite far away. 0:22:17.600 --> 0:22:21.000 To get them to school was a major financial burden 0:22:21.080 --> 0:22:26.880 for their village people. So we suggested that what only 0:22:27.119 --> 0:22:31.360 get to school built nearby, actually right in the village. 0:22:31.880 --> 0:22:35.040 And we also raised money from the Psychic Society in 0:22:35.040 --> 0:22:39.919 the US and they provided the books, pencils, and so 0:22:40.000 --> 0:22:41.240 on for their kids. 0:22:41.920 --> 0:22:44.880 And after a lot of wrangling and hobnobbing, the school 0:22:44.920 --> 0:22:48.720 was built. Parents weren't so desperate for money, and the 0:22:48.800 --> 0:22:52.080 kids got to stay home, and the plants well, they 0:22:52.119 --> 0:22:53.280 started to thrive again. 0:22:53.840 --> 0:22:56.320 Now I believe it's over one thousand plants back in 0:22:56.359 --> 0:22:59.840 the wild again. Everyone is happy. If we didn't step 0:22:59.840 --> 0:23:03.199 in at that time, they probably wouldn't survive in the 0:23:03.240 --> 0:23:06.280 long term. You can come in and say don't dig 0:23:06.320 --> 0:23:08.240 this plant, don't do that. You know, you can fence 0:23:08.280 --> 0:23:11.159 it all in and build a cage and whatever, or 0:23:11.200 --> 0:23:14.159 you haven't solved the problem. Unfortunately, not a very common 0:23:14.200 --> 0:23:16.000 approach in nature conservation. 0:23:16.880 --> 0:23:20.840 But Anders thinks that over time that could change. More 0:23:20.920 --> 0:23:25.080 conservationists are realizing that band aids don't work that. If 0:23:25.080 --> 0:23:28.160 we want to stop the cycle, we need to address 0:23:28.320 --> 0:23:41.919 the root causes of poaching. When Yvonne Guzman and his 0:23:41.960 --> 0:23:45.240 fellow fishermen set out on that November day, they didn't 0:23:45.240 --> 0:23:48.800 give much thought to the macroeconomics, the market implications, or 0:23:48.800 --> 0:23:52.200 the international supply chain. They were just trying to earn 0:23:52.200 --> 0:23:56.400 a buck, and as news reports later showed, it appears 0:23:56.480 --> 0:24:01.080 the money led fishermen to a fatal mistake. Reports suggest 0:24:01.400 --> 0:24:03.639 that the men may have agreed to pick succulents for 0:24:03.680 --> 0:24:09.280 not one, but multiple competing cartels. If true, it appears 0:24:09.280 --> 0:24:12.720 that the word got out the fishermen had failed to 0:24:12.760 --> 0:24:17.400 show loyalty, and so that day a boat of goons 0:24:17.560 --> 0:24:30.160 ambushed them. In the end, two men, including Gusman, were murdered. Now, 0:24:30.200 --> 0:24:33.520 admittedly succulents are still a pretty small part of the 0:24:33.600 --> 0:24:39.120 cartel's portfolio, but stories like these are sadly becoming more 0:24:39.200 --> 0:24:45.880 and more common, especially when you consider other plants, especially trees. 0:24:46.960 --> 0:24:50.119 With our research, we found that there's quite a strong link. 0:24:50.320 --> 0:24:54.160 We've teamba crime and drug chaffee king. That link, he's 0:24:54.200 --> 0:24:57.440 really strong, particularly in Central and South America. 0:24:57.880 --> 0:25:00.000 In fact, the experts already have a name for it. 0:25:00.480 --> 0:25:04.560 Narco deforestation is sort of a term that's being used 0:25:04.920 --> 0:25:09.920 more widely now. Forest's being cut for airstrips, for landing 0:25:09.960 --> 0:25:13.160 planes to move product from where it's grown and producing 0:25:13.160 --> 0:25:18.160 into consumer markets. There's forest clearing that happens for cattle ranching, 0:25:18.400 --> 0:25:23.080 for laundering drug money. You've got forest areas being cleaned, 0:25:23.320 --> 0:25:27.719 sometimes even in protected areas, to grow coca. 0:25:28.000 --> 0:25:31.239 And some groups are just cutting and stealing trees for 0:25:31.280 --> 0:25:37.680 the old fashioned reason to make money. Take Columbia. When 0:25:37.720 --> 0:25:41.160 FARK signed a peace agreement a few years ago, smaller 0:25:41.200 --> 0:25:45.680 crime syndicates groups like Los Bontieros and the National Liberation 0:25:45.880 --> 0:25:51.320 Army swarmed in and started clearing land. Just recently, a 0:25:51.359 --> 0:25:55.159 criminal network was arrested for illegally chopping down eight hundred 0:25:55.160 --> 0:25:59.080 and sixty five acres of forest in Central and South America. 0:25:59.520 --> 0:26:03.840 Narco forestation has turned into a cottage industry. The timber 0:26:04.200 --> 0:26:07.560 not only earns cartel's a tidy income, but also helps 0:26:07.640 --> 0:26:10.439 hide the dirty dealings lurking in the shadows. 0:26:11.119 --> 0:26:13.879 So the timber industry could be used as a kava, 0:26:14.040 --> 0:26:17.879 for example, a concealment method. And we've wildlife trafficking. We 0:26:17.960 --> 0:26:20.760 often say that as well that team the companies can 0:26:20.800 --> 0:26:22.719 be used as front companies. 0:26:23.680 --> 0:26:27.200 The reasons for it are by now obvious low risk, 0:26:27.760 --> 0:26:35.080 high reward. But as species disappear, organized criminals are expected 0:26:35.080 --> 0:26:37.920 to make more than one hundred and nineteen billion dollars 0:26:37.960 --> 0:26:40.840 this year in the illegal trade of plants and animals, 0:26:42.080 --> 0:26:46.560 but the ripple effects are worse. The estimated impact of 0:26:46.600 --> 0:26:51.080 these environmental crimes is expected to cost more than half 0:26:51.160 --> 0:26:55.240 a trillion dollars. Slaps on the wrist aren't going to 0:26:55.280 --> 0:26:59.320 stop that kind of money, especially large cartels, which are 0:26:59.359 --> 0:27:01.840 perfectly situated for this kind of business. 0:27:04.480 --> 0:27:07.120 They must have a chain of people who are buying 0:27:07.240 --> 0:27:11.840 sourcing products, consolidating them to make those big shipments. People 0:27:11.960 --> 0:27:16.000 who are organized in terms of liaising, getting the logistics 0:27:16.040 --> 0:27:18.960 together to move that shipment, getting it through a port 0:27:19.200 --> 0:27:21.680 or an airport to move it internationally. 0:27:22.280 --> 0:27:24.880 The bigger the group, the harder it is to find 0:27:24.960 --> 0:27:29.560 who exactly is responsible. In fact, even when we know 0:27:29.680 --> 0:27:33.640 these crimes are happening, it can be hard to stop them. 0:27:34.080 --> 0:27:40.040 Take this case from twenty fifteen. So there is this containership. 0:27:40.320 --> 0:27:42.560 Fully loaded with timber, and it's. 0:27:42.440 --> 0:27:43.840 Set to sail from Peru to. 0:27:43.840 --> 0:27:47.760 The United States to Houston. Was it some final destination. 0:27:48.560 --> 0:27:51.600 Well, on that day it's supposed to depart, everything stops. 0:27:53.640 --> 0:27:57.240 A public prosecutor came on board and tried to seize 0:27:57.400 --> 0:27:59.080 a portion of the timber. 0:27:59.520 --> 0:28:02.040 Apparently the word got out that some of the timber. 0:28:02.000 --> 0:28:04.480 Fifteen percent of the total. 0:28:04.560 --> 0:28:08.240 Is illegal. The inspectors have a chat with the ship 0:28:08.280 --> 0:28:11.360 captain and eventually they come to an agreement. 0:28:11.320 --> 0:28:15.160 Leave port, deliver the timber just returned with that fifteen 0:28:15.200 --> 0:28:18.520 percent portion that was found to be illegal at the 0:28:18.640 --> 0:28:21.399 end of the voyage. 0:28:23.119 --> 0:28:26.639 So the ship leaves port and the investigators they start 0:28:26.680 --> 0:28:29.080