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Speaker 1: Tonight we have such a unique and just incredible guest.

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Speaker 1: I am certain that y'all have no understanding of what

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Speaker 1: his job was, so we're going to get right to

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Speaker 1: it tonight. We have special Agent with the US Fish

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Speaker 1: and Wildlife Service. He served for over twenty years. Ed

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Speaker 1: Newcomer worked in Los Angeles. He did a variety of

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Speaker 1: international posts. He retired in twenty twenty two. But y'all,

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Speaker 1: during his career he conducted some high profile international wildlife

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Speaker 1: trafficking investigations. These investigations involved every continent. He even went

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Speaker 1: to Antarctica. Okay, he was not playing when it came

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Speaker 1: to investigating some of the most notorious wildlife criminals that

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Speaker 1: are out there. Most of y'all may not understand just

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Speaker 1: how these crimes occur in the organized criminal element that's involved.

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Speaker 1: He is the recipient of the Humane Law Enforcement Award

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Speaker 1: from the Humane Society of the United States. He has

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Speaker 1: a record of six law enforcement awards from the US

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Speaker 1: Attorney General's Office of Los Angeles. You can see him

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Speaker 1: talk about his work on several documentaries, including Primes, bug

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Speaker 1: Out A and E Undercover, Caught on Tape, and Animal Planets,

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Speaker 1: Animal Black Ops. Ed currently serves as the International law

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Speaker 1: Enforcement Advisor for the Wildlife Investigators Training Alliance. ED is

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Speaker 1: also the host of a hit crime podcast focusing on

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Speaker 1: wildlife crime called Nature's Secret Service. ED newcomer, Welcome to

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Speaker 1: Zone seven, Mac.

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Speaker 2: Thank you so much for having me. I am a

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Speaker 2: huge fan of you and your show. I'm just so

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Speaker 2: honored to be here. And that was a very generous introduction.

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Speaker 2: So thank you very much.

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Speaker 1: Well, you are mighty welcome. But you know, we both

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Speaker 1: know I left a lot out. You've gotten a lot

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Speaker 1: of awards. You served as an ambassador to animals. You

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Speaker 1: are somebody that law enforcement, prosecutors, the public all disrespect,

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Speaker 1: and we appreciate the work you have done.

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Speaker 2: Well, thank you. You know what I got to say,

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Speaker 2: I had a blast. I had the greatest job on

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Speaker 2: the planet and I loved it. And honestly, I think

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Speaker 2: all the success that I had in my career can

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Speaker 2: be chalked up to just trying to keep up with

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Speaker 2: my colleagues and meet the high bar that they were

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Speaker 2: all setting around me.

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Speaker 1: Amen. Well, you know, you and I have been able

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Speaker 1: to talk on the phone, and one evening we were

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Speaker 1: talking and we were talking about undercover work and the

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Speaker 1: danger and special ops and all that. When I hung up,

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Speaker 1: my husband said, who was that? What kind of special ops?

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Speaker 1: And I was like, man, he was doing some undercover

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Speaker 1: work on bugs and what it was like, is that

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Speaker 1: code for something? I said, No, I literally mean bugs.

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Speaker 1: And you know, it's something that people I don't think

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Speaker 1: really understand. And one of the conversations you and I

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Speaker 1: talked about was a theft that was done at a

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Speaker 1: bug emporium a museum in Philly, and it was like

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Speaker 1: nobody really knew about it, nobody was really talking about it.

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Speaker 1: But when I started researching it because I wanted to

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Speaker 1: do an article for Crime Online, I'm like, there are

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Speaker 1: these bugs that are so rare that somebody had to

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Speaker 1: have had inside information to know they were at this museum.

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Speaker 1: And there were things like the a eyed spider, and

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Speaker 1: you and I just talked about, you know, your average

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Speaker 1: police officer, if they were to pull somebody over with

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Speaker 1: his and cockroaches, they don't want a fool with them.

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Speaker 1: They're just going to say, have a good day, be

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Speaker 1: on your way. I don't think it would dawn on

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Speaker 1: them that these creatures could be being trafficked or harmed

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Speaker 1: in some way. Or being sold on the black market.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly. And you know, I think that a lot

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Speaker 2: of people when they hear about it, if they do

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Speaker 2: hear about it, they assume that it's you know, like

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Speaker 2: maybe a hobbyist that's gone rogue or an animal lover

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Speaker 2: who just got a little carried away. But in reality,

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Speaker 2: you know, these animals can be worth a lot of money,

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Speaker 2: including insects, fish, reptiles, mammals, and so the people that

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Speaker 2: are involved in criminal activity related to animals, they are

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Speaker 2: just criminals. They're in it for the money and there's

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Speaker 2: a lot of money to be had if you know

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Speaker 2: what you're doing.

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Speaker 1: Try how did you get into this business? Like what

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Speaker 1: drove you to look at the US Fish and Wildlife Service?

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Speaker 2: Yeah, it was actually really kind of a lucky happenstance, honestly.

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Speaker 2: I you know, from time I was a kid, I

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Speaker 2: wanted to be in law enforcement. I was always interested

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Speaker 2: in that type of career or you know, public service

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Speaker 2: in particular related to kind of doing the right thing.

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Speaker 2: And you know, for a long time, as a really

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Speaker 2: young kid, I thought I'll be a police officer someday,

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Speaker 2: and then I don't know, at some point in my

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Speaker 2: life I realized there was such a thing as a

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Speaker 2: game warden, and I thought, oh, police for a wildlife

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Speaker 2: that sounds kind of cool, because I always I grew

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Speaker 2: up in Denver near the Rockies, and my family always

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Speaker 2: instilled a very high appreciation for the natural world and wildlife,

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Speaker 2: you know, among all of us. And then really I

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Speaker 2: went to college at the University of Colorado, and I

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Speaker 2: was majoring in political science, thinking I was going to

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Speaker 2: go on to law school, and you know, that would

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Speaker 2: give me a lot of opportunities to pursue a lot

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Speaker 2: of different, you know, public service law, law enforcement oriented careers.

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Speaker 2: And I just made a shortcut through the biology building

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Speaker 2: to get to my classroom that I needed to go to,

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Speaker 2: and I just happened to look at the bulletin board

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Speaker 2: and I saw there was a job announcement for special

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Speaker 2: Agent for US Mission Wildlife Service, and it kind of

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Speaker 2: stopped me in my tracks. And I read about it,

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Speaker 2: and I was like, I didn't even know this, you know,

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Speaker 2: position existed. But as I read about it, I thought, shoot,

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Speaker 2: these guys and gals are the FBI agents for wildlife crime,

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Speaker 2: and that is exactly what I want to do. And

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Speaker 2: so I kind of you know, I went on and

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Speaker 2: went to law school. But about you know, as soon

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Speaker 2: as they had their first opening for special agents after

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Speaker 2: I graduated from law school, I put my application in.

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Speaker 2: For sure, I didn't get hired right away, because most

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Speaker 2: people don't, but I kept at it and accident I

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Speaker 2: accidentally practiced law for ten years because it took me

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Speaker 2: about ten years to get the attention of the Fish

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Speaker 2: and wild Life Service, get that interview and get.

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Speaker 1: In Wow, what a perfect pairing. I mean, you already

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Speaker 1: love nature, you already love being outdoors, and now you've

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Speaker 1: got this solid decade of you know, legal training. I

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Speaker 1: mean what I give a few word to them.

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Speaker 2: Well, it I didn't realize what a benefit it would

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Speaker 2: be to have been, you know, trained as a lawyer.

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Speaker 2: But also most of my career as a lawyer during

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Speaker 2: that ten years was as a prosecutor, and so you know,

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Speaker 2: I understood what prosecutors needed when they when they were

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Speaker 2: preparing a criminal case for trial. So it really it

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Speaker 2: made it easy for me to as I was conducting

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Speaker 2: investigations as a federal agent. It made me easy. It

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Speaker 2: made it easy for me to kind of look ahead

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Speaker 2: and say, Okay, I know what questions the prosecutor is

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Speaker 2: going to ask me when I bring this case to them,

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Speaker 2: and I know what they're going to want if we're

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Speaker 2: going to go to trial and win.

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Speaker 1: Well, I've already said it, but you have some of

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Speaker 1: the most notable cases with the US Fish and Wildlife Service.

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Speaker 1: But you started off with an unexpected bang, didn't you.

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Speaker 2: You know, I did, and it wasn't the one I wanted.

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Speaker 2: And it wasn't the one I expected because you know, honestly,

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Speaker 2: when you become a special agent for the Fish and

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Speaker 2: Wildlife Services, there's you know, twenty five plus federal wildlife

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Speaker 2: laws that we enforce, plus we can enforce the entire

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Speaker 2: Title eighteen Criminal Code. But you know, you're thinking, you

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Speaker 2: come on, you're a federal agent. You're working, you know,

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Speaker 2: you're going to be working on international wildlife trafficking, especially

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Speaker 2: because right out of the academy I was sent to

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Speaker 2: Los Angeles and Los Angeles, New York Miami are the huge,

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Speaker 2: you know, field offices that handle most of the international

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Speaker 2: trafficking cases. So you go there and you think, oh boy,

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Speaker 2: I'm going to I can't wait for my first case

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Speaker 2: involving a tiger, right, But no, really, First, the first

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Speaker 2: big case I was assigned to my on my own

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Speaker 2: was involved at kind of notorious insect trafficker, and I

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Speaker 2: kind of was like, oh, my gosh, I don't want

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Speaker 2: this bug case, you know, But as I kind of

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Speaker 2: dug into it, Basically the way it started is we

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Speaker 2: got a tip from another agent in our in an

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Speaker 2: field office in Texas. He had received information from a

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Speaker 2: possible informant that this wanted, kind of notorious insect trafficker

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Speaker 2: was going to be at this huge event in Los

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Speaker 2: Angeles called the Insect Fair or the bug Fare. And

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Speaker 2: so my boss was like, hey, Ed, you know you're new,

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Speaker 2: why don't you go down to the Bug Fair manage

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Speaker 2: this informant. He's going to try to make some contact

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Speaker 2: with this guy. And the more I looked into it,

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Speaker 2: I realized, you know, I found some old case reports

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Speaker 2: from a previous agent who had retired, who had looked

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Speaker 2: at this subject. And this guy was a bad dude.

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Speaker 2: He was going into national parks all over the country

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Speaker 2: basically poaching butterflies in particular, but beatles as well from

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Speaker 2: our national parks, packaging them up and shipping them overseas

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Speaker 2: where he would sell them for huge profits. And so,

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Speaker 2: you know, I'm looking at the case reports and I

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Speaker 2: see that this other agent had spent a lot of

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Speaker 2: you know, legwork and time trying to get this guy.

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Speaker 2: And by the way, the guy's name is Yoshi Kojima.

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Speaker 2: He's a Japanese national. And this other agent just you know,

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Speaker 2: was so close. He was always just like, you know,

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Speaker 2: a hair's breath away from catching Yoshi, but he just

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Speaker 2: couldn't get him. And ultimately, agent a guy, a great

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Speaker 2: agent named John Mendoza. Unfortunately, his supervisory chain of command

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Speaker 2: told him, hey, you got to close this case. We're

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Speaker 2: spending too much time on and it's a bug case.

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Speaker 2: There's nothing to it or not. And he very you know,

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Speaker 2: reluctantly closed his case down. And then a few years later, boom,

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Speaker 2: we get this tip that Pajima's kind of back in business.

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Speaker 2: He's back in the States. He's he's going to be

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Speaker 2: at this huge insect fair and I thought, okay, I'll

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Speaker 2: go check it out, and the thing freaking exploded right

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Speaker 2: on my lap.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, and I'll tell you it's a hard sale to

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Speaker 1: get people to maybe be sympathetic to the dung beetle.

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Speaker 1: But but you know, butterflies. Everybody, I think sees the

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Speaker 1: beauty and you know just how magnificent they are when

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Speaker 1: they morph, and so that's the story. Even children, I think,

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Speaker 1: would resonate that this person is going to post these

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Speaker 1: animals and whether they stay alive or not, he's going

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Speaker 1: to sell them.

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Speaker 2: Right, And you know what, that's a that's a great perspective,

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Speaker 2: because that was my perspective coming into it. Probably like

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Speaker 2: yours and many of your listeners, our experience with butterflies

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Speaker 2: is as kids running around with nets, catching you know,

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Speaker 2: swallowtails or whatever and letting them go or maybe we

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Speaker 2: had a little butterfly collection as kids. I didn't, but

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Speaker 2: you know a lot of kids did. And I never

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Speaker 2: you know, you don't think of insects as something that

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Speaker 2: might be endangered or in need of protection because they're

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Speaker 2: just everywhere normally, normally you're shoeing them away more than

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Speaker 2: anything else. But as I got into this case, I

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Speaker 2: realized that there are a lot of insects around the

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Speaker 2: world that are critically endangered, listed as threatened or endangered

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Speaker 2: under the US Endangered Species Act, protected by international treaty

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Speaker 2: known as Piety's which is the Convention on International trade

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Speaker 2: and endangered species. And as I thought about it, I thought,

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Speaker 2: you know, if an insect is endangered almost InCD, what

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Speaker 2: do you think is happening with the other animals in

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Speaker 2: that ecosystem? Right? So I'm telling you if a bird

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Speaker 2: wing butterfly in Indonesia is struggling to maintain, it's you know, species.

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Speaker 2: I guarantee you the tigers that live in that jungle

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Speaker 2: are having a problem, The rhinos that are in that

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Speaker 2: jungle are having a problem. Every animal they're all connected, yeah,

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Speaker 2: for sure, no doubt.

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Speaker 1: Yeah. So it'll start with the frogs and lizards and

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Speaker 1: then it'll move to whatever eats them and whatever eats them,

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Speaker 1: and that's what happens. Yeah, And you know there's another

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Speaker 1: aspect to this case you're working though, when you're looking

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Speaker 1: at this thing internationally and you're seeing how he goes

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Speaker 1: to these different continents and he gets these different butterflies

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Speaker 1: and the way he sells them. There's this web of

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Speaker 1: criminality that he has has got to be a little

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Speaker 1: shocking to you.

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Speaker 2: Yes, And that was very shocking as I got to know.

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Speaker 2: So that the way this rolled out, The plan was

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Speaker 2: we had an informant that was going to go to

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Speaker 2: the bug fair and make some contacts with Kojima and

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Speaker 2: just kind of get a field for what he was

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Speaker 2: up to, and maybe we'd get lucky and he'd admit

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Speaker 2: to making doing something illegal. And my job was really

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Speaker 2: just to manage the informant, help him operate his undercover equipment,

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Speaker 2: his recording equipment, and you know, make sure he was safe.

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Speaker 2: You know, we didn't think Yoshi Kojima was dangerous, and

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Speaker 2: this was at a public event, so nothing was going

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Speaker 2: to happen. But nonetheless, you have an agent there and

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Speaker 2: this poor guy. During the whole day, Yoshi just really

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Speaker 2: wouldn't talk to him anyway. So at the end of

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Speaker 2: the day I kind of got frustrated and I thought, Wow,

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Speaker 2: what the hell, I'm just going to walk up and

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Speaker 2: talk to Yoshi Kojima myself. Because I was there playing clothes,

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Speaker 2: he didn't know who I was, so I, you know,

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Speaker 2: played myself off as a novice, asked him a lot

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Speaker 2: of questions about what he was selling, which of course,

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Speaker 2: we're all legal. But as I and that kick started

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Speaker 2: this relationship that I built in an undercover capacity with

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Speaker 2: Kojima that lasted about three years and took me three

254
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Speaker 2: years to make a case against him, because, as I learned,

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Speaker 2: he was extremely paranoid. He had a heavy Japanese accent,

256
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Speaker 2: so he had trouble pronouncing fish and wildlife. So he

257
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Speaker 2: would often tell me, I mean, he had no idea

258
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Speaker 2: I worked for fish and wildlife. But he would often

259
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Speaker 2: tell me that I had to watch out and be

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Speaker 2: careful because the fish and wild guys were out there.

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Speaker 2: And he always called us the fish and wild guys.

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Speaker 2: And he had known that John Mendoza was after him

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Speaker 2: years before, and he bragged about how he outsmarted Special

264
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Speaker 2: Agent John Mendoza with the fish and wild guys. And

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Speaker 2: that really annoyed me. And you know, put the emphasis

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Speaker 2: in I guess the fire under me to make sure

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Speaker 2: that I didn't allow somebody to think that they pulled

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Speaker 2: one over on the fish and wild guys.

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Speaker 1: After three years, you finally got a break. Somebody called

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Speaker 1: in a tip. Tell us who the person was if

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Speaker 1: you know that called in talking about a Ted Nelson.

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Speaker 2: Well, I got to be honest with you, This was

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Speaker 2: not a break. This was actually the second time that

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Speaker 2: I thought I had completely driven this case right into

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Speaker 2: the ground. You know, I was a new agent and

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Speaker 2: all around me. All my fellow agents were basically killing

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Speaker 2: it and they were making case after case, and here

278
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Speaker 2: I am. I got this big opportunity. And Yoshi ko

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Speaker 2: Jima was a difficult person to work under cover. He

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Speaker 2: I always described him like a junior high school boyfriend

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Speaker 2: or girlfriend. If you didn't if you were not available

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Speaker 2: when he called or he wanted your attention, he would

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Speaker 2: stop talking to me for weeks at a time, and

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Speaker 2: it was it was frustrating. And yeah, there were a

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Speaker 2: couple of times there where he just would kind of

286
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Speaker 2: cut me off and I'd think, oh boy, this case

287
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Speaker 2: is over, and so let me back up a little

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Speaker 2: bit before I get to this tip you mentioned. Ultimately

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Speaker 2: after that, I introduced myself to him at that bugfair.

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Speaker 2: He took a liking to me, and he actually at

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Speaker 2: the end of the day he gave me a gift

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Speaker 2: of some really worthless dried butterflies. And to be clear

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Speaker 2: for your listeners, these are not live butterflies. They're captured

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Speaker 2: out in the wild. Usually what they do is they

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Speaker 2: capture the caterpillars. They bring the caterpillars in just like

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Speaker 2: you would as a kid. We put them in aquariums

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Speaker 2: or tanks and they let them cocoon.

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Speaker 1: As soon as.

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Speaker 2: They hatch, they kill them because now their wings are

300
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Speaker 2: in perfect condition, and then they're mounted. They're pinned in

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Speaker 2: a box, kind of like what you'd see at a museum,

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Speaker 2: and that's how they're valuable. They're sold pinned. And so

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Speaker 2: he gave me a box of pinneds dried butterflies that

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Speaker 2: weren't valuable as a gift, and this kind of sparked

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Speaker 2: off this three year relationship where ultimately he started to

306
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Speaker 2: invite me to go to lunch, dinner, go out for coffee,

307
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Speaker 2: and he very carefully groomed me to become a business

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Speaker 2: partner with him. And his idea was he would send

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Speaker 2: His plan was he was going to send me butterflies

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Speaker 2: from Japan that I would then facilitate selling online to

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Speaker 2: various collectors. And it was real clear all of us

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Speaker 2: in the office, we knew Okay well kajimas and by

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Speaker 2: the way, my undercover name was Ted Nelson. It was

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Speaker 2: it was clear to us, Okay Kajima's setting me up

315
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Speaker 2: to take the fall. He's going to set up this

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Speaker 2: business and if any if fish and wild guys come calling,

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Speaker 2: he'll feed them Ted Nelson and he'll walk away and

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Speaker 2: slink off in the background. So we knew that was happening,

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Speaker 2: but it didn't really matter because where our hope was, Okay,

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Speaker 2: he's going to send us some protected butterflies and hope

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Speaker 2: that Ted Nelson can sell them, but he wasn't. He

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Speaker 2: wouldn't send me anything. So between all this junior high

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Speaker 2: school behavior of not talking to me for weeks and

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00:18:49,240 --> 00:18:53,399
Speaker 2: not sending me anything but promising to I decided, being

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Speaker 2: a young, new creative thinking agent, I said, Hey, I'm

326
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Speaker 2: going to lure this guy back by creating my own

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Speaker 2: I'm going to start selling what looks I'm going to

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Speaker 2: create a situation that looks like I'm selling butterflies on eBay.

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Speaker 2: I'm not really going to sell him. I'm just going

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Speaker 2: to create a fake eBay account. And so the idea,

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Speaker 2: of course, as you can imagine, is he will call

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Speaker 2: me and say, hey, Ted, where are you getting these?

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Speaker 2: I can supply you with better material for less money.

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Speaker 2: Well smart, I thought, But what happened was he started

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Speaker 2: to see me as a competitor and he started to

336
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Speaker 2: get mad at me, and I tried to reassure him.

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00:19:31,200 --> 00:19:33,920
Speaker 2: I was like, hey, you know, you just weren't sending anything,

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Speaker 2: and so I had to find somebody else, and I'd

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00:19:35,840 --> 00:19:38,720
Speaker 2: rather work with you, but he wasn't having it, and

340
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Speaker 2: he was getting more and more angry, and I was

341
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Speaker 2: getting more and more panic that the relationship was crashing

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Speaker 2: and burning. And this culminated in this tip you mentioned.

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Speaker 2: Now we come back to this tip. One day, I

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00:19:51,640 --> 00:19:54,320
Speaker 2: get a phone call from a California State game warden

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00:19:54,520 --> 00:19:59,360
Speaker 2: who monitors their tip line California State Fish and Wildlife,

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Speaker 2: which is the state agency that you know does enforced

347
00:20:03,400 --> 00:20:05,919
Speaker 2: the state wildlife laws. They have a tip line that

348
00:20:05,960 --> 00:20:08,320
Speaker 2: you can call that's one eight hundred number. And one

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Speaker 2: day this game warden checks and there's this heavy Japanese

350
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Speaker 2: accented caller who is reporting Ted Nelson for illegally selling

351
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Speaker 2: butterflies on eBay, And so I asked him to send

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Speaker 2: me the tape and we all listen to it at

353
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Speaker 2: my office and everybody, all the agents in the office

354
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Speaker 2: were like, oh, boy, Ed, you're never gonna get Kojima now,

355
00:20:31,080 --> 00:20:34,720
Speaker 2: because now that he's turned you in, if you stay

356
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Speaker 2: in the business, he's going to assume that you have

357
00:20:37,680 --> 00:20:40,479
Speaker 2: been flipped as an informant. He's never going to trust you.

358
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Speaker 2: So I thought, oh, okay, well cases over. I screwed

359
00:20:44,640 --> 00:20:48,040
Speaker 2: this case up and I kind of ignored it for

360
00:20:48,040 --> 00:20:50,919
Speaker 2: a while. And that was this big tip that came in.

361
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Speaker 2: It didn't help us at all. It actually really hurt

362
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Speaker 2: us because here are bad guy is turning in the

363
00:20:56,040 --> 00:20:57,080
Speaker 2: undercover agency.

364
00:20:57,320 --> 00:21:00,400
Speaker 1: Yeah, not kidding that kid.

365
00:21:01,920 --> 00:21:06,840
Speaker 2: Yeah, it wasn't good. And you know, I had learned

366
00:21:06,920 --> 00:21:10,359
Speaker 2: during this time, this is probably two years in. I

367
00:21:10,440 --> 00:21:14,119
Speaker 2: had learned that Kojima had this massive network of people

368
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Speaker 2: around the world who he paid to collect insects, mostly butterflies,

369
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Speaker 2: but also some beatles. All over the world. He'd take

370
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Speaker 2: advantage of local people. He'd basically recruit them to collect stuff.

371
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Speaker 2: They had no idea what they were collecting. They didn't

372
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Speaker 2: know it was worth. You know, they had a butterfly

373
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Speaker 2: it was worth ten thousand dollars that they just knew

374
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Speaker 2: they were going to get paid one hundred dollars from

375
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Speaker 2: Kojima for collecting it. And as a result of this

376
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Speaker 2: huge network, he could pretty much get any any insect

377
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Speaker 2: you wanted. So if you were interested in the one

378
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Speaker 2: of the most endangered butterflies in the world, let's say

379
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Speaker 2: the you know the ornithopter Alexandria, which is one of

380
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Speaker 2: the biggest butterfly in the world. It's about twelve inches

381
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Speaker 2: across wingspan and highly endangered. He could get it, and

382
00:22:02,800 --> 00:22:07,120
Speaker 2: you know, universities and museums can't even get those specimens

383
00:22:07,119 --> 00:22:10,720
Speaker 2: for their you know, scientific collections. So I realized this

384
00:22:10,840 --> 00:22:13,800
Speaker 2: guy was an important player. And here I screwed the

385
00:22:13,840 --> 00:22:16,800
Speaker 2: case up so much. So much for that great introduction

386
00:22:16,920 --> 00:22:19,879
Speaker 2: you just gave me. Right, here's this great agent basically

387
00:22:19,920 --> 00:22:20,600
Speaker 2: screwed up this.

388
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Speaker 1: Case anyway, Ed, thanks for coming that.

389
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Speaker 2: The end is on seven, one of your best episodes ever.

390
00:22:29,560 --> 00:22:31,880
Speaker 1: But here's the thing, and this is what I want,

391
00:22:32,000 --> 00:22:35,360
Speaker 1: you know, young investigators listening to this show to think

392
00:22:35,400 --> 00:22:39,960
Speaker 1: about change the word butterfly to heroin. It could still

393
00:22:40,000 --> 00:22:43,040
Speaker 1: take you three years with a heavy hitter. You could

394
00:22:43,119 --> 00:22:46,600
Speaker 1: think you've ruined it multiple times. Stay in the game,

395
00:22:47,240 --> 00:22:51,840
Speaker 1: keep playing because it's going to possibly work out, and

396
00:22:51,880 --> 00:22:54,120
Speaker 1: if not, you're still going to learn something you can

397
00:22:54,240 --> 00:22:58,240
Speaker 1: use on the next case. So keep telling us what happened. Now.

398
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Speaker 1: You think everybody thinks, oh, well, Ed, that's over.

399
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Speaker 2: You know that is actually a very good kind of

400
00:23:05,880 --> 00:23:10,000
Speaker 2: teaching moment. Right, You're absolutely right, and it is a

401
00:23:10,000 --> 00:23:13,840
Speaker 2: good lesson for young investigators because I certainly had this

402
00:23:13,920 --> 00:23:17,040
Speaker 2: feeling of being a little depressed that this case was over.

403
00:23:17,560 --> 00:23:19,520
Speaker 2: I was a little worried that I had, you know,

404
00:23:20,040 --> 00:23:22,119
Speaker 2: been burned or whatever. And I think a lot of

405
00:23:22,160 --> 00:23:25,040
Speaker 2: new agents, in particular, the first time they do undercover work,

406
00:23:25,080 --> 00:23:28,399
Speaker 2: they think they're at every moment, they think they're burned,

407
00:23:28,400 --> 00:23:32,960
Speaker 2: and the people know that they're cops. So what I did.

408
00:23:33,359 --> 00:23:36,760
Speaker 2: My boss actually suggested, she said, why don't she close

409
00:23:36,880 --> 00:23:40,119
Speaker 2: this case? And I kind of said.

410
00:23:41,400 --> 00:23:41,600
Speaker 1: No.

411
00:23:42,240 --> 00:23:44,399
Speaker 2: I kind of begged her to let me keep it open.

412
00:23:45,000 --> 00:23:47,800
Speaker 2: So I wasn't I didn't really work on the Kojima

413
00:23:47,840 --> 00:23:50,159
Speaker 2: case for a few months, but I kind of just

414
00:23:50,280 --> 00:23:53,359
Speaker 2: kept it on the corner of my desk and I

415
00:23:53,400 --> 00:23:55,560
Speaker 2: started to work on other things. Honestly, I picked up

416
00:23:55,560 --> 00:23:59,320
Speaker 2: other cases. I started to work on another pretty detailed

417
00:23:59,400 --> 00:24:04,359
Speaker 2: undercover case, and lo and behold, out of nowhere. You know,

418
00:24:04,480 --> 00:24:07,040
Speaker 2: Kojima kind of disappeared from the US after that. He

419
00:24:07,119 --> 00:24:10,200
Speaker 2: wasn't coming to the bug Fair anymore. He was still dealing.

420
00:24:10,280 --> 00:24:13,680
Speaker 2: We knew that, but nobody was really seeing him. And

421
00:24:14,800 --> 00:24:17,000
Speaker 2: Lo and Behold, you know, about a year and a

422
00:24:17,040 --> 00:24:20,080
Speaker 2: half later, maybe a year later, I get a just

423
00:24:20,119 --> 00:24:23,120
Speaker 2: a random phone call from somebody in the insect business,

424
00:24:23,160 --> 00:24:26,520
Speaker 2: a legitimate dealer, who says, hey, I heard a rumor

425
00:24:26,520 --> 00:24:29,560
Speaker 2: that Kojima's coming back to the insect fair and May,

426
00:24:30,040 --> 00:24:33,639
Speaker 2: which was May two thousand and six. And I said

427
00:24:33,720 --> 00:24:35,840
Speaker 2: to my boss, I said, you know what, I'm going

428
00:24:35,920 --> 00:24:38,959
Speaker 2: to give this one more shot. And I cooked up

429
00:24:38,960 --> 00:24:42,360
Speaker 2: this plan where I would go to the fair, I'd

430
00:24:42,440 --> 00:24:45,680
Speaker 2: find him, and then I'd just hope for the best

431
00:24:45,720 --> 00:24:49,720
Speaker 2: and try to manufacture an accidental encounter with the guy

432
00:24:50,200 --> 00:24:53,360
Speaker 2: and see what happened. I had a plan for what

433
00:24:53,400 --> 00:24:55,680
Speaker 2: would what I would say, and how things would go,

434
00:24:55,800 --> 00:24:58,720
Speaker 2: because you know, he knows he turned me in. He's

435
00:24:58,760 --> 00:25:01,080
Speaker 2: got to be wondering if I know he turned me in.

436
00:25:02,040 --> 00:25:05,000
Speaker 2: So I found him. I went to the fair that year,

437
00:25:05,040 --> 00:25:08,119
Speaker 2: and I found him as pretty easy ante character. Yoshiko

438
00:25:08,240 --> 00:25:11,000
Speaker 2: Ziba was a funny guy. He was in his mid

439
00:25:11,080 --> 00:25:15,960
Speaker 2: fifties then. He always wore cargo shorts, a Hawaiian shirt,

440
00:25:16,119 --> 00:25:18,600
Speaker 2: and a fanny pack that was adjusted to the front,

441
00:25:18,640 --> 00:25:21,200
Speaker 2: and he kind of had thinning hair that he didn't

442
00:25:21,200 --> 00:25:23,920
Speaker 2: call him very often. And the funny thing is in

443
00:25:24,000 --> 00:25:27,720
Speaker 2: that fanny pack if any crook in La had known

444
00:25:27,880 --> 00:25:30,200
Speaker 2: that this little Japanese man was walking around with ten

445
00:25:30,200 --> 00:25:34,800
Speaker 2: thousand dollars cash. I can't believe the guy never got

446
00:25:34,840 --> 00:25:37,600
Speaker 2: robbed in La, but he carried a lot of cash

447
00:25:37,600 --> 00:25:40,760
Speaker 2: in his fanny pack. So I saw him, and I

448
00:25:40,840 --> 00:25:43,959
Speaker 2: knew that there were two main hauls in the museum

449
00:25:44,000 --> 00:25:47,200
Speaker 2: where they were displaying all these insects that were being sold.

450
00:25:47,280 --> 00:25:50,119
Speaker 2: And these insect fairs are really crazy to go to,

451
00:25:50,160 --> 00:25:53,880
Speaker 2: if anybody ever has a chance to visit one. They're

452
00:25:53,920 --> 00:25:55,600
Speaker 2: open to the public, and there's a lot of just

453
00:25:55,640 --> 00:25:58,679
Speaker 2: regular you know, James and Joe's in there with their kids,

454
00:25:59,160 --> 00:26:02,159
Speaker 2: looking at insects that are very common, maybe sold for

455
00:26:02,240 --> 00:26:04,920
Speaker 2: a dollar or two to be penned in a collection.

456
00:26:05,480 --> 00:26:09,720
Speaker 2: But then there are also these heavy duty collectors and

457
00:26:09,760 --> 00:26:12,960
Speaker 2: they're in there looking for the insects that are being

458
00:26:13,359 --> 00:26:17,680
Speaker 2: sold for five, six hundred thousand dollars apiece for you know, collections.

459
00:26:18,200 --> 00:26:20,840
Speaker 2: So Kojima kind of moved in those circles, but I

460
00:26:20,920 --> 00:26:22,880
Speaker 2: knew that he was going to have to move from

461
00:26:22,880 --> 00:26:24,800
Speaker 2: one of the exhibit halls to the other through a

462
00:26:24,800 --> 00:26:27,320
Speaker 2: pretty narrow walkway, so I just kind of hung out

463
00:26:27,320 --> 00:26:29,439
Speaker 2: in there until I saw him coming, and then I

464
00:26:29,440 --> 00:26:31,240
Speaker 2: made it look like I was walking the other direction,

465
00:26:31,760 --> 00:26:34,679
Speaker 2: and sure enough he saw me. I saw him. I

466
00:26:34,800 --> 00:26:39,800
Speaker 2: feigned surprised. He looked genuinely surprised, and he looked nervous.

467
00:26:39,920 --> 00:26:43,639
Speaker 2: He looked scared, like he was afraid of me for

468
00:26:43,680 --> 00:26:47,200
Speaker 2: some reason, probably because he thought I knew he had

469
00:26:47,200 --> 00:26:47,600
Speaker 2: turned me in.

470
00:26:48,080 --> 00:26:49,879
Speaker 1: Yeah, maybe somebody paid you a visit.

471
00:26:50,200 --> 00:26:54,240
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly. So I made the initial approach and I

472
00:26:54,400 --> 00:26:58,320
Speaker 2: kind of open arms, big smile on my face, you know,

473
00:26:58,600 --> 00:27:01,560
Speaker 2: acted so happy to see him. And one of the

474
00:27:01,680 --> 00:27:03,480
Speaker 2: very first things I said to him, which is something

475
00:27:03,520 --> 00:27:07,040
Speaker 2: I had planned out pretty carefully, was I thanked him

476
00:27:07,520 --> 00:27:11,600
Speaker 2: and I said I owe you a huge debt. And

477
00:27:11,640 --> 00:27:13,159
Speaker 2: he kind of, you know, looked at me in a

478
00:27:13,160 --> 00:27:17,520
Speaker 2: puzzled way, and I said, look, some a hole turned

479
00:27:17,520 --> 00:27:20,720
Speaker 2: me in to the fish and wild guys. And these

480
00:27:20,760 --> 00:27:23,159
Speaker 2: agents showed up at my house and they tried to

481
00:27:23,200 --> 00:27:26,480
Speaker 2: search my place, but thank you for the advice you

482
00:27:26,600 --> 00:27:29,480
Speaker 2: gave me years ago. They didn't find a damn thing.

483
00:27:30,040 --> 00:27:33,600
Speaker 2: They couldn't make a case against me, And thanks to you, Yoshi,

484
00:27:33,640 --> 00:27:37,600
Speaker 2: I'm not in jail. And well i'll tell you what

485
00:27:37,720 --> 00:27:40,280
Speaker 2: he fell for a hook line and sinker. He loved it.

486
00:27:40,520 --> 00:27:43,400
Speaker 2: He loved that he because he always valued that role

487
00:27:43,480 --> 00:27:47,280
Speaker 2: as the mentor right, and he he loved it. And

488
00:27:47,640 --> 00:27:50,040
Speaker 2: the first thing he said to me was, well, are

489
00:27:50,080 --> 00:27:52,800
Speaker 2: you still selling? And I said, oh, yeah, I am,

490
00:27:53,440 --> 00:27:56,119
Speaker 2: but I have a horrible supplier. I just made up

491
00:27:56,160 --> 00:27:57,399
Speaker 2: some that I said, I have a guy out of

492
00:27:57,440 --> 00:28:00,800
Speaker 2: Germany who's supplying me. He keeps sending me butterflies with

493
00:28:00,840 --> 00:28:05,959
Speaker 2: broken wings and no antenna. And Yoshi he bit, and

494
00:28:06,000 --> 00:28:10,520
Speaker 2: he said, let's have lunch, and he took me to

495
00:28:10,560 --> 00:28:16,040
Speaker 2: lunch that day, and he outlined his ability to send

496
00:28:16,040 --> 00:28:19,439
Speaker 2: me whatever I wanted, basically, And that was a turning

497
00:28:19,440 --> 00:28:22,359
Speaker 2: point in the case. He now believed that I was

498
00:28:22,480 --> 00:28:24,920
Speaker 2: a true criminal because he knew he had turned me in.

499
00:28:25,560 --> 00:28:27,920
Speaker 2: He believed my story when I told him that fish

500
00:28:27,920 --> 00:28:30,040
Speaker 2: and wild fish and wild guys had come to see me,

501
00:28:30,400 --> 00:28:32,400
Speaker 2: because that's what that's what happened to him back when

502
00:28:32,440 --> 00:28:36,840
Speaker 2: John Mendoza was looking at him. And now we were pals,

503
00:28:37,119 --> 00:28:41,280
Speaker 2: and we made a list right there at the table

504
00:28:41,320 --> 00:28:45,520
Speaker 2: at this restaurant we went to of the various butterflies.

505
00:28:45,520 --> 00:28:47,880
Speaker 2: I was interested in what he could sell them to

506
00:28:47,960 --> 00:28:50,920
Speaker 2: me for. And he said Okay, I'll tell you what.

507
00:28:50,960 --> 00:28:54,320
Speaker 2: I'm going to go back to Japan. This was mid

508
00:28:54,360 --> 00:28:57,560
Speaker 2: two thousand, so Skype was fairly new as a web

509
00:28:57,600 --> 00:29:01,000
Speaker 2: communication tool. He said, let's get on ski. I can

510
00:29:01,040 --> 00:29:03,600
Speaker 2: show you what I've got in Japan, and you tell

511
00:29:03,600 --> 00:29:05,040
Speaker 2: me if you want it, and I'll send it to you.

512
00:29:05,760 --> 00:29:09,239
Speaker 2: So here here I walk away from this, you know,

513
00:29:09,400 --> 00:29:13,520
Speaker 2: reinvigorated relationship, and Yoshi's telling me he's going to be

514
00:29:13,640 --> 00:29:16,360
Speaker 2: in his home in Japan. He's going to show me

515
00:29:16,640 --> 00:29:20,440
Speaker 2: protected butterflies on a camera that I can record, and

516
00:29:20,520 --> 00:29:22,640
Speaker 2: he's going to tell me here's how I'm going to

517
00:29:22,680 --> 00:29:25,120
Speaker 2: smuggle it into the United States. Here's how much you're

518
00:29:25,120 --> 00:29:27,640
Speaker 2: going to pay for it. I mean, if this happens,

519
00:29:28,240 --> 00:29:29,640
Speaker 2: I make my case. Right.

520
00:29:30,000 --> 00:29:33,080
Speaker 1: He gave you every element you need exactly.

521
00:29:33,520 --> 00:29:35,960
Speaker 2: I mean, if this was if this worked, this was

522
00:29:36,040 --> 00:29:39,520
Speaker 2: going to sink him. Right. This was something that was

523
00:29:39,560 --> 00:29:43,960
Speaker 2: really pretty pretty amazing, and we were all pretty stoked

524
00:29:43,960 --> 00:29:47,120
Speaker 2: about it at the office when this unfolded. And that's

525
00:29:47,160 --> 00:29:50,959
Speaker 2: exactly what happened. He went back to Japan and for

526
00:29:51,000 --> 00:29:54,600
Speaker 2: the next few months, just about every night because you know,

527
00:29:55,200 --> 00:29:58,840
Speaker 2: he lived in Kyoto, Japan, and so his he was

528
00:29:58,880 --> 00:30:01,640
Speaker 2: about what twelve hours, ten hours something like that ahead

529
00:30:01,680 --> 00:30:04,640
Speaker 2: of Los Angeles, so he would want to talk during

530
00:30:04,680 --> 00:30:08,160
Speaker 2: his daytime, my nighttime, so between like ten pm and

531
00:30:08,280 --> 00:30:10,640
Speaker 2: two am, I'd be on a skype caller just about

532
00:30:10,640 --> 00:30:14,280
Speaker 2: every night with Kojima. And this guy did exactly what

533
00:30:14,440 --> 00:30:17,440
Speaker 2: I just outlined. He let me give you an example.

534
00:30:17,600 --> 00:30:21,680
Speaker 2: One time he offered to sell me what are known

535
00:30:21,760 --> 00:30:25,840
Speaker 2: as Papilio hospitan butterflies, which are they're only found in

536
00:30:25,920 --> 00:30:30,160
Speaker 2: Corsica and they're very endangered. They're on the US Endangered

537
00:30:30,200 --> 00:30:33,640
Speaker 2: Species list. And he offered to send me two pairs,

538
00:30:33,720 --> 00:30:37,280
Speaker 2: male and female pairs, so I'd get four butterflies, and

539
00:30:37,520 --> 00:30:42,960
Speaker 2: on a skype call he in a very detailed explanation.

540
00:30:43,120 --> 00:30:45,760
Speaker 2: He explained to me, Okay, it's going to cost you,

541
00:30:45,760 --> 00:30:48,360
Speaker 2: you know whatever, it was two or three thousand dollars

542
00:30:48,400 --> 00:30:52,560
Speaker 2: for these and I'm going to smuggle them in a

543
00:30:52,560 --> 00:30:55,120
Speaker 2: way I even use those words. I'm going to smuggle

544
00:30:55,120 --> 00:30:58,040
Speaker 2: them in a package along with this other species that

545
00:30:58,120 --> 00:31:01,520
Speaker 2: looks a lot like them. I'm going to basically declare

546
00:31:01,560 --> 00:31:05,320
Speaker 2: them as this unprotected species that's very similar looking. And

547
00:31:05,400 --> 00:31:08,200
Speaker 2: by the way, if you see a female mark on

548
00:31:08,200 --> 00:31:11,480
Speaker 2: one if a female mark with the number one next

549
00:31:11,480 --> 00:31:14,960
Speaker 2: to it. That's going to be a male hospitime. It

550
00:31:15,000 --> 00:31:18,400
Speaker 2: was a complicated smuggling scheme, but he outlined it for

551
00:31:18,440 --> 00:31:21,280
Speaker 2: me on the skype call which I recorded, and then

552
00:31:21,440 --> 00:31:24,840
Speaker 2: those butterflies arrive, and that was one count of smuggling

553
00:31:24,880 --> 00:31:30,120
Speaker 2: that was ironclad against Yoshikojima. And that went on for months.

554
00:31:30,320 --> 00:31:32,920
Speaker 2: During the during the months that we had these skype calls,

555
00:31:32,960 --> 00:31:36,480
Speaker 2: he offered to sell me butterflies valued at more than

556
00:31:36,520 --> 00:31:39,360
Speaker 2: three hundred thousand dollars. Now, of course I didn't have

557
00:31:39,360 --> 00:31:42,080
Speaker 2: that kind of hundercover money to spend. I had about

558
00:31:42,120 --> 00:31:45,320
Speaker 2: thirty thousand, which even my bosses didn't want me to

559
00:31:45,320 --> 00:31:49,080
Speaker 2: spend that I ended up spending about eighteen thousand dollars.

560
00:31:49,120 --> 00:31:51,160
Speaker 2: But I was very careful what I bought from him,

561
00:31:51,160 --> 00:31:55,000
Speaker 2: and I bought butterflies that were, you know, protected, that

562
00:31:55,320 --> 00:31:57,320
Speaker 2: from different parts of the world that would show his

563
00:31:57,600 --> 00:32:03,320
Speaker 2: scope and his reach and the severity of what he

564
00:32:03,400 --> 00:32:07,520
Speaker 2: was doing. And after we made a plan, Okay, after

565
00:32:07,600 --> 00:32:10,840
Speaker 2: you get this many and these particular species, we're going

566
00:32:10,880 --> 00:32:16,040
Speaker 2: to indict him. And we did that. We after about

567
00:32:16,040 --> 00:32:18,120
Speaker 2: three or four months, I was able to go to

568
00:32:18,160 --> 00:32:20,479
Speaker 2: a Grand jury present the case to a US attorney.

569
00:32:20,520 --> 00:32:22,680
Speaker 2: We took a coup to a grand jury in federal court,

570
00:32:23,240 --> 00:32:27,120
Speaker 2: and they indicted Kojimon seventeen counts of trafficking in the

571
00:32:27,240 --> 00:32:34,800
Speaker 2: dangered species. You know, here's another crazy side story about this.

572
00:32:35,600 --> 00:32:38,800
Speaker 2: One time I asked him just I didn't actually expect

573
00:32:38,880 --> 00:32:40,560
Speaker 2: him to be able to supply me with some of

574
00:32:40,600 --> 00:32:44,280
Speaker 2: the most endangered stuff. One time I asked him, I said, hey,

575
00:32:44,960 --> 00:32:48,000
Speaker 2: I do have a customer that's interested in the ornithopter

576
00:32:48,080 --> 00:32:51,080
Speaker 2: at Alexandria. This big the biggest butterfly in the world

577
00:32:51,440 --> 00:32:55,600
Speaker 2: that museums and universities can't get. And I said, do

578
00:32:55,640 --> 00:32:57,680
Speaker 2: you think you could get one of those? And he said, ah,

579
00:32:57,720 --> 00:32:59,440
Speaker 2: it'll take me a couple of weeks, but yeah, I

580
00:32:59,440 --> 00:33:02,640
Speaker 2: can do it. Sure as heck. I paid him for it,

581
00:33:02,680 --> 00:33:05,800
Speaker 2: and a few weeks later he smuggled it into the

582
00:33:05,920 --> 00:33:11,800
Speaker 2: US for me using international mail. But now, of course, sure, ol,

583
00:33:11,840 --> 00:33:16,680
Speaker 2: we got a problem. He's in Japan, right right, that's right.

584
00:33:17,120 --> 00:33:19,320
Speaker 2: So we got an arrest want for him. We've got

585
00:33:19,440 --> 00:33:22,200
Speaker 2: seventeen count federal indictment. But now we've got to get

586
00:33:22,200 --> 00:33:23,719
Speaker 2: our hands on him. So there's two ways we can

587
00:33:23,800 --> 00:33:29,480
Speaker 2: do that. We can extradite him, which is a very length, long,

588
00:33:29,640 --> 00:33:33,920
Speaker 2: long process, very difficult, very labor intensive. Or we know

589
00:33:34,000 --> 00:33:36,480
Speaker 2: he comes to the States. So in my mind, I thought, well,

590
00:33:36,520 --> 00:33:38,760
Speaker 2: if he comes here on his own volition, we can

591
00:33:38,760 --> 00:33:40,560
Speaker 2: just hook him up when he arrives at the airport.

592
00:33:41,560 --> 00:33:43,200
Speaker 2: So I thought, well, there's got to be a way

593
00:33:43,200 --> 00:33:46,520
Speaker 2: to get him here, and at one way presented itself

594
00:33:46,720 --> 00:33:51,560
Speaker 2: very early in this relationship. So at the beginning, in

595
00:33:51,600 --> 00:33:54,080
Speaker 2: the first year and a half or so, Kojima was

596
00:33:54,120 --> 00:33:56,200
Speaker 2: just he was friendly with me. He was a little

597
00:33:56,200 --> 00:33:59,680
Speaker 2: stand office. She was very paranoid, like he used to

598
00:33:59,720 --> 00:34:02,160
Speaker 2: sometime I'm in the middle of a conversation, he'd be like, so,

599
00:34:02,200 --> 00:34:04,480
Speaker 2: how long have you been with the Fish and Wildlife Service,

600
00:34:04,960 --> 00:34:07,400
Speaker 2: you know, and just trying to trip me up. And

601
00:34:07,480 --> 00:34:10,600
Speaker 2: one time after we met for coffee, he very carefully

602
00:34:10,640 --> 00:34:13,600
Speaker 2: examined my vehicle. You know, he's looking in the grill,

603
00:34:13,800 --> 00:34:16,040
Speaker 2: looking at the license plate, peering in the windows, and

604
00:34:16,080 --> 00:34:17,880
Speaker 2: I was like, yo, see what are you doing? And

605
00:34:17,960 --> 00:34:20,480
Speaker 2: he saw him looking for the police lights in the

606
00:34:20,480 --> 00:34:22,680
Speaker 2: grill of your car to make sure, and I'm like,

607
00:34:22,760 --> 00:34:24,560
Speaker 2: come on, Yoshi, I don't even know what fish and

608
00:34:24,600 --> 00:34:28,600
Speaker 2: Wildlife is. And so at the beginning he was paranoid,

609
00:34:28,680 --> 00:34:31,080
Speaker 2: but at the end he was very friendly with me,

610
00:34:31,239 --> 00:34:36,399
Speaker 2: and I realized he had I think Kojima was probably bisexual,

611
00:34:36,960 --> 00:34:40,040
Speaker 2: and he he had developed some type of serious attraction

612
00:34:40,160 --> 00:34:42,920
Speaker 2: to me, and it might have had something to do

613
00:34:42,960 --> 00:34:45,000
Speaker 2: with the fact that I had grown this huge biker

614
00:34:45,080 --> 00:34:47,160
Speaker 2: mustache for the other undercap cover case.

615
00:34:47,200 --> 00:34:47,879
Speaker 1: I was working on.

616
00:34:50,440 --> 00:34:55,800
Speaker 2: What you got, That's right, So he it was awkward

617
00:34:55,840 --> 00:34:59,080
Speaker 2: because he would sometimes make very suggestive statements to me

618
00:34:59,239 --> 00:35:01,680
Speaker 2: on these record a skype calls, you know, like wanting

619
00:35:01,719 --> 00:35:03,520
Speaker 2: me to take my shirt off, and you can't do that.

620
00:35:03,920 --> 00:35:06,960
Speaker 2: You're an undercover agent. You cannot. You can't take your

621
00:35:06,960 --> 00:35:09,640
Speaker 2: shirt off for a suspect. You can't just can't engage

622
00:35:09,640 --> 00:35:11,640
Speaker 2: in that kind of thing. So I had to very

623
00:35:11,680 --> 00:35:14,640
Speaker 2: carefully play it off, you know, without offending him, because

624
00:35:14,880 --> 00:35:18,000
Speaker 2: remember he's like a junior high school boyfriend or girlfriend.

625
00:35:18,040 --> 00:35:19,879
Speaker 2: He might stop talking to me if I offend him.

626
00:35:20,600 --> 00:35:22,480
Speaker 2: So I kept playing him off. But at the end,

627
00:35:22,520 --> 00:35:24,960
Speaker 2: when we had this arrest warrant, I realized, Okay, this

628
00:35:25,120 --> 00:35:29,640
Speaker 2: is it. I gotta play curious here, and the next

629
00:35:29,640 --> 00:35:32,480
Speaker 2: time he started to make suggestive comments to me, I

630
00:35:32,880 --> 00:35:35,319
Speaker 2: played it off like you know, you're wearing me down. Yes,

631
00:35:36,000 --> 00:35:39,000
Speaker 2: you're such a great guy. I'm curious. I'll tell you what.

632
00:35:39,320 --> 00:35:41,399
Speaker 2: Next time you come to LA, we'll go on a date.

633
00:35:42,080 --> 00:35:44,640
Speaker 2: And don't you know, like forty eight hours later, this

634
00:35:44,680 --> 00:35:47,000
Speaker 2: guy booked a flight to Los Angeles.

635
00:35:47,440 --> 00:35:47,720
Speaker 1: Wow.

636
00:35:47,800 --> 00:35:51,759
Speaker 2: And yeah, he arrived in LA and it was like

637
00:35:51,800 --> 00:35:53,920
Speaker 2: straight out of the movies. He was taken into custody

638
00:35:53,920 --> 00:35:57,239
Speaker 2: without incident. We rested him at the airport and we

639
00:35:57,280 --> 00:35:58,560
Speaker 2: had him.

640
00:35:58,680 --> 00:36:01,560
Speaker 1: Unbelievable. And I tell you something else. Here's another little

641
00:36:01,560 --> 00:36:05,080
Speaker 1: piece of advice. And I hope that the young investigators

642
00:36:05,080 --> 00:36:08,840
Speaker 1: are listening because you said something really important. In the beginning.

643
00:36:09,280 --> 00:36:12,520
Speaker 1: You wanted the tiger case, you want the polar bear case.

644
00:36:12,920 --> 00:36:17,400
Speaker 1: You're given a butterfly case. But you didn't just half

645
00:36:17,440 --> 00:36:20,560
Speaker 1: work it. And when we're given the opportunity to close

646
00:36:20,600 --> 00:36:23,600
Speaker 1: it took it. You did not. You stayed with that

647
00:36:23,719 --> 00:36:26,399
Speaker 1: case and the work that you were able to do.

648
00:36:28,120 --> 00:36:30,600
Speaker 1: I mean, that's what legends are made of. That's why

649
00:36:30,640 --> 00:36:34,399
Speaker 1: the US Attorney keeps giving you awards because what you're

650
00:36:34,440 --> 00:36:37,200
Speaker 1: able to do. I mean, you worked that thing like

651
00:36:37,280 --> 00:36:38,160
Speaker 1: it was heroin.

652
00:36:38,719 --> 00:36:42,080
Speaker 2: Yeah, and honestly, that was my very first law enforcement

653
00:36:42,120 --> 00:36:44,319
Speaker 2: award from the US Attorney's Office was for the work

654
00:36:44,360 --> 00:36:47,880
Speaker 2: I did on the Cojima Kicks, and it did open

655
00:36:47,960 --> 00:36:50,880
Speaker 2: my eyes to the importance of all the other species.

656
00:36:52,120 --> 00:36:55,800
Speaker 2: You know. Yeah, working on a tiger cub smuggling case

657
00:36:56,000 --> 00:36:58,960
Speaker 2: is sexy and fun and gets a lot of media attention.

658
00:36:59,640 --> 00:37:05,799
Speaker 2: Protecting wolves grizzly bears is important and fun, but you know,

659
00:37:06,040 --> 00:37:10,799
Speaker 2: there's a lot of animals and wildlife and nature out

660
00:37:10,840 --> 00:37:13,440
Speaker 2: there that has no voice and nobody's sticking up for it.

661
00:37:14,080 --> 00:37:17,080
Speaker 2: And yeah, it kind of opened my eyes to the

662
00:37:17,080 --> 00:37:19,359
Speaker 2: scope of our job and the importance of our job.

663
00:37:19,520 --> 00:37:23,719
Speaker 2: And yeah, you know, I don't like criminals. I wasn't

664
00:37:23,719 --> 00:37:27,160
Speaker 2: gonna let Yoshiko Jima get away, and I really didn't

665
00:37:27,200 --> 00:37:29,120
Speaker 2: like the fact that he thought he had outsmarted one

666
00:37:29,120 --> 00:37:33,120
Speaker 2: of our agents, so that that was another thing all day. Yeah,

667
00:37:33,160 --> 00:37:34,960
Speaker 2: the agency pride goes a long way.

668
00:37:35,080 --> 00:37:38,279
Speaker 1: Ray Amen, that goes a long way, and that's good

669
00:37:38,320 --> 00:37:42,240
Speaker 1: for everybody. And one thing too, I want to mention y'all,

670
00:37:42,280 --> 00:37:46,800
Speaker 1: when you're talking about these organized criminals, human trafficing plays

671
00:37:46,800 --> 00:37:49,640
Speaker 1: a role too. So when you're talking about a butterfly

672
00:37:49,840 --> 00:37:52,680
Speaker 1: or a tiger or a black bear. You can again

673
00:37:52,920 --> 00:37:55,520
Speaker 1: exchange that for a five year old boy, seventeen year

674
00:37:55,560 --> 00:37:59,160
Speaker 1: old girl, thirty six year old woman. They can get

675
00:37:59,360 --> 00:38:04,680
Speaker 1: people using the same routes that these smugglers use.

676
00:38:05,239 --> 00:38:09,840
Speaker 2: Absolutely. Yeah, investigation is investigation and crime is crime. This

677
00:38:09,960 --> 00:38:12,520
Speaker 2: isn't directly what you're referring to, but you know a

678
00:38:12,520 --> 00:38:15,799
Speaker 2: lot of times once a smuggler has the systems and

679
00:38:15,840 --> 00:38:18,799
Speaker 2: the roots in place, they will engage in other types

680
00:38:18,840 --> 00:38:21,279
Speaker 2: of crimes. You know, if you can smuggle butterflies into

681
00:38:21,320 --> 00:38:23,440
Speaker 2: the US, you can also smuggle drugs, or you can

682
00:38:23,480 --> 00:38:24,280
Speaker 2: smark people.

683
00:38:24,880 --> 00:38:28,759
Speaker 1: Well, look at pimps. Pimps are gonna run women, They're

684
00:38:28,800 --> 00:38:31,240
Speaker 1: gonna run drugs, they're gonna run guns.

685
00:38:31,760 --> 00:38:33,719
Speaker 2: Absolutely, it's opportunity.

686
00:38:34,080 --> 00:38:38,400
Speaker 1: And you know, after you had your butterfly case, you know,

687
00:38:38,480 --> 00:38:41,640
Speaker 1: you moved right into the fish smuggling. And here's what's

688
00:38:41,640 --> 00:38:44,320
Speaker 1: so funny. I have a buddy that works for Black

689
00:38:44,400 --> 00:38:47,640
Speaker 1: River Caviar and we were having a conversation because she

690
00:38:47,719 --> 00:38:51,720
Speaker 1: had somebody sort of famous say to her they prefer

691
00:38:51,880 --> 00:38:55,080
Speaker 1: wild caviar. And she said, well, if you've ever had

692
00:38:55,120 --> 00:38:59,360
Speaker 1: wild caviar, you've had black market caviar. Absolutely no, you

693
00:38:59,400 --> 00:39:02,359
Speaker 1: know you're not supposed to have caviat that didn't come

694
00:39:02,400 --> 00:39:04,840
Speaker 1: from a farm. Because sturgeon are endangered.

695
00:39:05,840 --> 00:39:08,440
Speaker 2: Many species of them are, yeah, some of them critically.

696
00:39:08,680 --> 00:39:10,320
Speaker 1: Well, tell us about your fish case.

697
00:39:10,680 --> 00:39:12,839
Speaker 2: Oh my gosh, you know here, I'm still waiting for

698
00:39:12,880 --> 00:39:17,160
Speaker 2: my tiger case, right right, but yeah, right, not long

699
00:39:17,239 --> 00:39:23,319
Speaker 2: after the Kojima case, I picked up this interesting fish case.

700
00:39:23,360 --> 00:39:25,520
Speaker 2: And this is going to require a little bit of

701
00:39:25,880 --> 00:39:31,840
Speaker 2: explanation about the law. But I think given some of

702
00:39:31,880 --> 00:39:35,080
Speaker 2: your points about you know, maybe some of the lessons

703
00:39:35,239 --> 00:39:39,440
Speaker 2: we can all learn from different investigators experiences. These fish

704
00:39:39,520 --> 00:39:45,279
Speaker 2: cases can be really complicated and very very lucrative for

705
00:39:45,320 --> 00:39:49,560
Speaker 2: the people involved. There's a fish known as the Asian arijuana.

706
00:39:49,719 --> 00:39:55,279
Speaker 2: It's not the marijuana, it's the arijuana it is. It's

707
00:39:55,320 --> 00:40:01,240
Speaker 2: an interesting fish. It's found throughout Asia, Southeast Asia, Indonesia,

708
00:40:01,520 --> 00:40:05,560
Speaker 2: South Asia, and it is a predatory fish that can

709
00:40:05,600 --> 00:40:09,000
Speaker 2: get pretty big, maybe like two and a half feet

710
00:40:09,080 --> 00:40:13,239
Speaker 2: at it when it's a mature adult. They have an

711
00:40:13,320 --> 00:40:17,680
Speaker 2: upturned mouth, which is really interesting, and they're what are

712
00:40:17,760 --> 00:40:22,480
Speaker 2: called mouth brewers. So when their eggs hatch, all of

713
00:40:22,520 --> 00:40:25,600
Speaker 2: the baby fish will hang around mama because mama's a

714
00:40:25,760 --> 00:40:32,120
Speaker 2: tough you know. Sob and she will defend her clutch

715
00:40:32,160 --> 00:40:34,640
Speaker 2: of fish, a baby fish, and if there's a threat,

716
00:40:34,680 --> 00:40:36,480
Speaker 2: they all run into it. She'll open her mouth and

717
00:40:36,520 --> 00:40:39,000
Speaker 2: they all swim into her mouth and she kind of

718
00:40:39,040 --> 00:40:41,680
Speaker 2: hides them in her mouth. And that's what they call

719
00:40:41,800 --> 00:40:45,640
Speaker 2: mouth brewers, is the once the they're very interesting fish,

720
00:40:45,719 --> 00:40:49,160
Speaker 2: but they're they're aggressive. They'll protect their their territory, and

721
00:40:49,160 --> 00:40:52,480
Speaker 2: that becomes important later in this story. So the way

722
00:40:52,520 --> 00:40:56,760
Speaker 2: the law is for Asian arijuana. Under the US Endangered

723
00:40:56,760 --> 00:41:00,839
Speaker 2: Species Act, they are listed as endangered, but under the

724
00:41:00,960 --> 00:41:04,000
Speaker 2: Convention on International Trade and Endangered Species, which is the

725
00:41:04,000 --> 00:41:08,920
Speaker 2: international treaty regarding the movement of wild animals, they have

726
00:41:09,080 --> 00:41:13,560
Speaker 2: dual protection. If they're wild, they're listed as Appendix one,

727
00:41:13,600 --> 00:41:17,040
Speaker 2: which means it cannot be traded in the trade. If

728
00:41:17,040 --> 00:41:21,359
Speaker 2: they're raved in captivity, they're listed as what's called Appendix two,

729
00:41:21,440 --> 00:41:25,920
Speaker 2: which means they can be sold internationally and shipped internationally

730
00:41:26,000 --> 00:41:29,400
Speaker 2: if they have a site's export permit from the country

731
00:41:29,440 --> 00:41:31,839
Speaker 2: of origin. And most of them, most of them come

732
00:41:31,880 --> 00:41:35,160
Speaker 2: out of Indonesia. Now, the reason this is important is

733
00:41:35,160 --> 00:41:39,200
Speaker 2: because anytime you have a scheme like that, a legal

734
00:41:39,239 --> 00:41:44,440
Speaker 2: scheme like that, it creates an opportunity to launder fish.

735
00:41:44,680 --> 00:41:47,759
Speaker 2: So all you have to do is catch your wildfish

736
00:41:47,880 --> 00:41:50,239
Speaker 2: and make it look like it was raised in captivity

737
00:41:50,280 --> 00:41:52,480
Speaker 2: and bing bang boom, you get your permit and it

738
00:41:52,520 --> 00:41:57,399
Speaker 2: appears to be legal. And during this next investigation I'm

739
00:41:57,400 --> 00:42:00,319
Speaker 2: going to talk about, I was able to unco cover

740
00:42:01,280 --> 00:42:05,879
Speaker 2: really the insidious side of the Asian arijuana trade. There

741
00:42:05,960 --> 00:42:08,600
Speaker 2: is a lot of laundering of these fish going on.

742
00:42:09,400 --> 00:42:13,759
Speaker 2: There are really cool fish, they're unusual, and the fact

743
00:42:13,800 --> 00:42:16,880
Speaker 2: that they're being depleted from the wild under the guise

744
00:42:16,960 --> 00:42:21,200
Speaker 2: of having been captive raised is really like it's sinister.

745
00:42:21,320 --> 00:42:24,640
Speaker 2: It's almost sinister, right, and it really shows that the

746
00:42:24,680 --> 00:42:29,720
Speaker 2: people involved are greedy. They're interested in money. They don't

747
00:42:29,719 --> 00:42:32,680
Speaker 2: care about even their own environment, which to me is

748
00:42:32,800 --> 00:42:34,560
Speaker 2: just repulsive.

749
00:42:35,360 --> 00:42:37,799
Speaker 1: So these fish go for about five grand.

750
00:42:38,040 --> 00:42:41,600
Speaker 2: Yeah, depending on size. Now, normally to ship them, you know,

751
00:42:41,640 --> 00:42:43,080
Speaker 2: and have them live, they're going to have to be

752
00:42:43,120 --> 00:42:45,839
Speaker 2: fairly small, because to smuggle them you have to have

753
00:42:46,560 --> 00:42:48,960
Speaker 2: these Now that unlike the butterflies, these fish are only

754
00:42:49,040 --> 00:42:52,440
Speaker 2: valuable if they're alive. And the reason they're so valuable

755
00:42:52,520 --> 00:42:55,000
Speaker 2: is there's many cultures in the world that believe that

756
00:42:55,080 --> 00:42:58,399
Speaker 2: Asian Arajuanas bring good luck and they come in these

757
00:42:58,560 --> 00:43:01,000
Speaker 2: crazy color patterns, like there might be one that looks

758
00:43:01,120 --> 00:43:03,840
Speaker 2: like a gold bar and then another one will be

759
00:43:03,960 --> 00:43:07,080
Speaker 2: like bright red. It's all the same species, it's like

760
00:43:07,120 --> 00:43:11,600
Speaker 2: different morphs. So you could have a small fish that's

761
00:43:12,120 --> 00:43:14,959
Speaker 2: maybe four or five inches in length that would sell

762
00:43:15,000 --> 00:43:18,440
Speaker 2: between fifteen hundred and five thousand dollars from the initial

763
00:43:18,480 --> 00:43:21,160
Speaker 2: sale from the provider. If the fish starts to get

764
00:43:21,160 --> 00:43:24,799
Speaker 2: bigger and it's maybe twelve twelve to twenty inches, it

765
00:43:25,000 --> 00:43:30,239
Speaker 2: could easily go for ten thousand dollars or more. During

766
00:43:30,280 --> 00:43:32,920
Speaker 2: my investigation of this Asian arijuana case we're going to

767
00:43:32,920 --> 00:43:37,600
Speaker 2: talk about, which I called Operation RTG, there was a

768
00:43:37,600 --> 00:43:40,480
Speaker 2: report of one fish being sold for thirty thousand dollars,

769
00:43:40,520 --> 00:43:44,719
Speaker 2: just one live fish. As you can imagine, that kind

770
00:43:44,719 --> 00:43:49,840
Speaker 2: of money will draw criminal enterprises right to it. I

771
00:43:49,880 --> 00:43:52,759
Speaker 2: called this case RTG because one of the codes that's

772
00:43:52,800 --> 00:43:56,279
Speaker 2: often used in the criminal networks is for an Asian

773
00:43:56,280 --> 00:44:00,239
Speaker 2: arijuana is RTG, and that stands for Redtail Golden, and

774
00:44:00,280 --> 00:44:04,440
Speaker 2: it's a particular morph of Asian arijuana. They also sometimes

775
00:44:04,520 --> 00:44:08,080
Speaker 2: use a code name like dragonfish, or they might use SR,

776
00:44:08,760 --> 00:44:12,560
Speaker 2: which stands for super Red. But the way that started

777
00:44:12,600 --> 00:44:14,760
Speaker 2: for me and and I think this is the lesson

778
00:44:14,840 --> 00:44:19,040
Speaker 2: for younger or up and coming or people you know,

779
00:44:19,080 --> 00:44:21,600
Speaker 2: investigators or people who want to get into law enforcement

780
00:44:21,600 --> 00:44:26,040
Speaker 2: and do investigations. Always pay attention to those like be

781
00:44:26,280 --> 00:44:28,719
Speaker 2: available to talk to the public, pay attention to those

782
00:44:28,719 --> 00:44:31,560
Speaker 2: phone calls that come into the office, and don't sit

783
00:44:31,640 --> 00:44:34,440
Speaker 2: around in the office waiting for your supervisor to assign

784
00:44:34,480 --> 00:44:38,200
Speaker 2: a case to you are saying. In the Los Angeles,

785
00:44:38,200 --> 00:44:40,600
Speaker 2: you know, like I said, we had we had hard

786
00:44:40,719 --> 00:44:43,160
Speaker 2: charging agents in Los Angeles. We were one of the

787
00:44:43,200 --> 00:44:47,520
Speaker 2: busiest field offices in the country. If an agent was

788
00:44:47,560 --> 00:44:50,520
Speaker 2: waiting for a supervisor to assign a case to them,

789
00:44:50,600 --> 00:44:55,799
Speaker 2: our view as agents was, well, that agent is kind

790
00:44:55,800 --> 00:44:59,040
Speaker 2: of mediocre, right, They're not working very hard because you shouldn't.

791
00:44:59,080 --> 00:45:01,680
Speaker 2: You shouldn't have to wait around for your supervisor to it.

792
00:45:01,719 --> 00:45:05,799
Speaker 2: So fign'd something if your networked in. So that's how

793
00:45:05,840 --> 00:45:07,920
Speaker 2: this case came to me. I was kind of obsessed

794
00:45:08,000 --> 00:45:10,520
Speaker 2: with talking to the public and taking phone calls from

795
00:45:10,520 --> 00:45:12,520
Speaker 2: the public, and if somebody walked in our front door

796
00:45:12,520 --> 00:45:14,879
Speaker 2: and they wanted to talk to an agent, I'd sit

797
00:45:14,920 --> 00:45:17,040
Speaker 2: down and talk to them. And one of the things

798
00:45:17,040 --> 00:45:22,040
Speaker 2: that came up for me was I used to skulk around,

799
00:45:22,840 --> 00:45:24,840
Speaker 2: for lack of a better word, I used to snoop

800
00:45:24,880 --> 00:45:28,839
Speaker 2: around on these various bulletin boards and chat rooms on

801
00:45:29,160 --> 00:45:35,040
Speaker 2: websites that attracted people who were into really exotic fish.

802
00:45:35,239 --> 00:45:38,719
Speaker 2: And one of those places is called Aquaticpredators dot Com.

803
00:45:39,080 --> 00:45:40,879
Speaker 2: I don't know if they're still around, but they were

804
00:45:40,880 --> 00:45:43,800
Speaker 2: in the mid two thousands. So I used to just routinely,

805
00:45:43,840 --> 00:45:45,480
Speaker 2: if I had nothing else going on, I had an

806
00:45:45,520 --> 00:45:49,280
Speaker 2: undercover email account, and I would log into Aquatic Predators

807
00:45:49,320 --> 00:45:51,640
Speaker 2: dot Com and I'd just start snooping around in the

808
00:45:51,640 --> 00:45:54,640
Speaker 2: bulletin boards and see what people were talking about. And

809
00:45:54,760 --> 00:45:57,839
Speaker 2: one day I come across this posting by a guy

810
00:45:57,960 --> 00:46:03,200
Speaker 2: named Andre Ramsa, and he's just basically making this very

811
00:46:03,239 --> 00:46:07,560
Speaker 2: nonchalant inquiry about whether or not anyone in the US

812
00:46:08,120 --> 00:46:12,279
Speaker 2: knows how to get RTGs into the US. And I

813
00:46:12,280 --> 00:46:17,280
Speaker 2: immediately recognized that RTG was a code name for Asian arijuana.

814
00:46:18,320 --> 00:46:20,920
Speaker 2: And my thinking was, I need to reach out to

815
00:46:20,960 --> 00:46:23,799
Speaker 2: this guy, because I don't know how many thousands of

816
00:46:23,800 --> 00:46:26,880
Speaker 2: people are seeing this post, right, so I'm going to

817
00:46:26,920 --> 00:46:28,719
Speaker 2: try to intercept this. I'm going to try to be

818
00:46:28,760 --> 00:46:31,640
Speaker 2: the guy this guy's talking to, rather than somebody else

819
00:46:31,680 --> 00:46:35,319
Speaker 2: in the US who might actually be a smuggler. So

820
00:46:35,360 --> 00:46:38,719
Speaker 2: I reached out to him and I find out basically

821
00:46:39,040 --> 00:46:42,120
Speaker 2: in a short while few exchanges, that he's based out

822
00:46:42,120 --> 00:46:44,719
Speaker 2: of Indonesia, which is one of the places Asian Arijuanas

823
00:46:44,719 --> 00:46:49,480
Speaker 2: are found. And he tells me he's got a friend

824
00:46:49,560 --> 00:46:52,840
Speaker 2: in San Diego and he wants to send him to

825
00:46:53,160 --> 00:46:56,400
Speaker 2: Asian Arijuanas, but he knows it's illegal and he's not

826
00:46:56,440 --> 00:46:58,279
Speaker 2: sure how to do it, so he's passing it off

827
00:46:58,360 --> 00:47:00,400
Speaker 2: like he's not selling it. He's just send it as

828
00:47:00,440 --> 00:47:07,560
Speaker 2: a gift to a friend. And I said, now, interesting, Cheryl,

829
00:47:08,080 --> 00:47:10,200
Speaker 2: some of your listeners might say, Hey, isn't a newcomer

830
00:47:10,239 --> 00:47:17,160
Speaker 2: about to entrap? This guy will, and so maybe it's

831
00:47:17,200 --> 00:47:19,759
Speaker 2: worthwhile to just give a two second primer on what

832
00:47:20,000 --> 00:47:23,759
Speaker 2: entrapment is. And you know, for your listeners if they

833
00:47:23,760 --> 00:47:27,600
Speaker 2: don't know, entrapment means that, you know, law enforcement basically

834
00:47:27,640 --> 00:47:31,120
Speaker 2: creates the opportunity and gives the person the idea to

835
00:47:31,120 --> 00:47:34,440
Speaker 2: commit the crime when they wouldn't have had the idea

836
00:47:34,560 --> 00:47:38,759
Speaker 2: on their own or the opportunity on their own. And basically,

837
00:47:38,800 --> 00:47:41,040
Speaker 2: all you need to do as a law enforcement officer

838
00:47:41,080 --> 00:47:45,560
Speaker 2: to get past a defense of entrapment is provide what

839
00:47:45,680 --> 00:47:48,839
Speaker 2: the law or the courts referred to as a sentilla

840
00:47:49,000 --> 00:47:53,600
Speaker 2: of evidence that they were predisposed. And a scintilla is

841
00:47:53,600 --> 00:47:56,239
Speaker 2: not defined in the law, but we all know sintilla

842
00:47:56,400 --> 00:47:57,200
Speaker 2: is very little.

843
00:47:58,400 --> 00:47:59,120
Speaker 1: It ain't much.

844
00:48:00,120 --> 00:48:02,239
Speaker 2: Those are exact words I was about to use. It

845
00:48:02,320 --> 00:48:08,400
Speaker 2: ain't much. And so you know, already this Andre Ramsea

846
00:48:08,440 --> 00:48:12,359
Speaker 2: guy has already presented to me predisposition. He's told me

847
00:48:12,560 --> 00:48:15,480
Speaker 2: he wants to send RTGs to the US and he's

848
00:48:15,480 --> 00:48:19,880
Speaker 2: having trouble because it's illegal. So it's already this until

849
00:48:19,880 --> 00:48:21,600
Speaker 2: it's there. But there's a few more things I can

850
00:48:21,640 --> 00:48:23,640
Speaker 2: do to kind of shore that up as we go along.

851
00:48:23,680 --> 00:48:26,760
Speaker 2: But basically I told him, hey, I'm having the same problem.

852
00:48:27,080 --> 00:48:29,160
Speaker 2: It's hard to get things past customs, but I have

853
00:48:29,239 --> 00:48:32,360
Speaker 2: an idea, and that's all I said. And then I

854
00:48:32,480 --> 00:48:35,719
Speaker 2: let him make the next step, and he did. He

855
00:48:35,800 --> 00:48:39,160
Speaker 2: wanted to know what my idea was, and I thought, well,

856
00:48:39,400 --> 00:48:41,719
Speaker 2: I'm going to see what he's up to. So I

857
00:48:41,800 --> 00:48:44,520
Speaker 2: basically presented a scenario to him that I had a

858
00:48:44,520 --> 00:48:46,880
Speaker 2: friend who worked for US Customs who could help me

859
00:48:47,239 --> 00:48:52,080
Speaker 2: get things through unnoticed. And this is a guy in Indonesia,

860
00:48:52,200 --> 00:48:54,440
Speaker 2: a country where I know there's a lot of corruption,

861
00:48:54,760 --> 00:48:58,160
Speaker 2: so it would not be unusual for him to believe

862
00:48:58,200 --> 00:49:01,240
Speaker 2: that story. I mean, as far as in his world,

863
00:49:01,280 --> 00:49:06,080
Speaker 2: corruption is common. So he bit and he immediately started

864
00:49:06,160 --> 00:49:08,319
Speaker 2: talking to me about my plan and how he would

865
00:49:08,360 --> 00:49:13,399
Speaker 2: do it. And this quickly morphed into I actually made

866
00:49:13,400 --> 00:49:18,560
Speaker 2: some notes in preparation of our recording today, and I

867
00:49:18,600 --> 00:49:21,239
Speaker 2: realized that my first contact with him was on May third.

868
00:49:22,080 --> 00:49:24,800
Speaker 2: Between May sixth and May eighth, he started to introduce

869
00:49:24,880 --> 00:49:28,000
Speaker 2: me to not just a friend in San Diego, but

870
00:49:28,960 --> 00:49:32,520
Speaker 2: seventeen customers in the United States he had kind of,

871
00:49:33,000 --> 00:49:36,440
Speaker 2: you know, fostered who were very interested in purchasing Asian

872
00:49:36,440 --> 00:49:40,360
Speaker 2: arijuana fish from him. Yeah, so this was not a

873
00:49:40,360 --> 00:49:42,440
Speaker 2: guy who was sending fish as gifts. This was a

874
00:49:42,440 --> 00:49:46,920
Speaker 2: guy who was engaged in the business of selling Asian arijuana.

875
00:49:47,480 --> 00:49:51,239
Speaker 2: So we knew we had a case. And what I

876
00:49:51,280 --> 00:49:56,720
Speaker 2: did was I basically explained this plan not only to him,

877
00:49:57,040 --> 00:49:59,760
Speaker 2: but also to all of his customers, because they started

878
00:49:59,760 --> 00:50:02,120
Speaker 2: to call all my undercover cell phone and ask me,

879
00:50:02,840 --> 00:50:05,440
Speaker 2: how are you going to do this? And what I

880
00:50:05,520 --> 00:50:08,040
Speaker 2: was very careful to do with every single customer that

881
00:50:08,120 --> 00:50:11,879
Speaker 2: called me or potential customer. I said, hey, I said,

882
00:50:11,880 --> 00:50:14,759
Speaker 2: you're not a cop, are you, because this is illegal, right,

883
00:50:15,000 --> 00:50:17,680
Speaker 2: And I would basically get them to tell me what

884
00:50:17,719 --> 00:50:21,560
Speaker 2: the law was. And every single person I talked to

885
00:50:21,840 --> 00:50:25,960
Speaker 2: who was a potential customer of Andre was very aware

886
00:50:26,000 --> 00:50:28,920
Speaker 2: of the Endangered Species Act, very aware that Asian arijuanas

887
00:50:28,960 --> 00:50:31,000
Speaker 2: were not legal to import it to the United States,

888
00:50:31,040 --> 00:50:35,640
Speaker 2: even if captive bread and they wanted them. And these

889
00:50:35,680 --> 00:50:38,320
Speaker 2: guys were talking about paying between five hundred dollars and

890
00:50:38,400 --> 00:50:41,120
Speaker 2: three thousand fish, depending on the size they were getting,

891
00:50:41,400 --> 00:50:43,600
Speaker 2: and they wanted reassurance from me that I could get

892
00:50:43,600 --> 00:50:51,520
Speaker 2: the fish in illegally without getting caught. This case really

893
00:50:51,600 --> 00:50:55,279
Speaker 2: unfolded quickly. Like I said, by early May, I had

894
00:50:55,320 --> 00:50:58,520
Speaker 2: been in contact with seventeen people who wanted this to happen,

895
00:50:59,239 --> 00:51:05,040
Speaker 2: and by June twenty second, Andre's basically making plans to

896
00:51:05,120 --> 00:51:07,880
Speaker 2: send the first two fish as a test because he

897
00:51:07,960 --> 00:51:12,000
Speaker 2: wanted to see if this scheme would work right. So

898
00:51:12,080 --> 00:51:16,040
Speaker 2: I worked with US Customs and Homeland Security as well investigations,

899
00:51:16,239 --> 00:51:21,320
Speaker 2: and we Andre sent the shipment, and by this time

900
00:51:21,800 --> 00:51:24,279
Speaker 2: the US Fish and Wilife Service as an intelligence unit,

901
00:51:24,320 --> 00:51:27,640
Speaker 2: and they were able to decipher that Andrea's last name

902
00:51:27,680 --> 00:51:30,719
Speaker 2: was actually Gunna one rather than Ramza, so he was

903
00:51:30,800 --> 00:51:33,719
Speaker 2: using a fake name. So we identified him as a

904
00:51:33,719 --> 00:51:37,480
Speaker 2: guy named Andre Guna one out of the go Or, Indonesia,

905
00:51:38,239 --> 00:51:41,440
Speaker 2: and he decided he was going to send two fish

906
00:51:41,480 --> 00:51:46,360
Speaker 2: first as a test. He did. He sent them to

907
00:51:46,440 --> 00:51:49,960
Speaker 2: Ted Nelson, again was my undercover name. I received those

908
00:51:50,000 --> 00:51:54,280
Speaker 2: fish at LAX through Korea Air and I took pictures

909
00:51:54,320 --> 00:51:57,280
Speaker 2: and emailed back said, hey, your fish arrived. Everything's good.

910
00:51:58,080 --> 00:52:00,319
Speaker 2: We knew that he wanted to ship more, so we

911
00:52:00,400 --> 00:52:03,040
Speaker 2: wanted to. We didn't want to take the case down yet,

912
00:52:03,080 --> 00:52:05,560
Speaker 2: so we actually delivered those two fish to his first

913
00:52:05,640 --> 00:52:10,920
Speaker 2: two customers. In one instance, me and another agent drove

914
00:52:11,000 --> 00:52:13,759
Speaker 2: to San Diego and personally delivered the fish to a

915
00:52:13,800 --> 00:52:17,160
Speaker 2: guy named Sam in San Diego. And during that meeting,

916
00:52:17,800 --> 00:52:21,200
Speaker 2: Sam like literally, I think the quote in one of

917
00:52:21,239 --> 00:52:24,600
Speaker 2: my reports was whew, I'm so glad you're not a

918
00:52:24,600 --> 00:52:27,040
Speaker 2: federal agent, because I wasn't sure we were going to

919
00:52:27,040 --> 00:52:32,040
Speaker 2: get these fish through. And then he goes on to

920
00:52:32,080 --> 00:52:34,759
Speaker 2: explain the law to me, and I was like, you know,

921
00:52:34,840 --> 00:52:37,279
Speaker 2: the whole thing's recorded. It doesn't get better than that.

922
00:52:37,320 --> 00:52:39,160
Speaker 2: When the bad guy's telling you what the law is.

923
00:52:39,280 --> 00:52:40,279
Speaker 1: Oh, that's fantastic.

924
00:52:40,600 --> 00:52:44,279
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was fun. The other fish we shipped to

925
00:52:44,400 --> 00:52:48,799
Speaker 2: a guy, and this guy actually becomes important later in

926
00:52:48,840 --> 00:52:51,960
Speaker 2: this story. But we shipped the other fish via FedEx

927
00:52:52,000 --> 00:52:56,040
Speaker 2: to another guy in Kentucky, and we alerted. This is

928
00:52:56,080 --> 00:52:58,759
Speaker 2: the great thing about being a federal agent US Fish

929
00:52:58,800 --> 00:53:01,200
Speaker 2: and Wildlife Service. We have agent It's all over the country, right,

930
00:53:02,280 --> 00:53:05,000
Speaker 2: So I alerted the agents in Kentucky, and we actually

931
00:53:05,000 --> 00:53:08,520
Speaker 2: had agents doing surveillance on the house who observed the

932
00:53:08,520 --> 00:53:11,239
Speaker 2: fed Ex driver delivered this package that I had sent

933
00:53:12,200 --> 00:53:17,240
Speaker 2: and actually, you know, observed our suspect in Kentucky received

934
00:53:17,280 --> 00:53:20,040
Speaker 2: the package at his front door. So we knew, in

935
00:53:20,120 --> 00:53:23,000
Speaker 2: anticipation of future shirts warrants, that the fish went into

936
00:53:23,000 --> 00:53:27,120
Speaker 2: that house and that suspect, you know X, A guy

937
00:53:27,200 --> 00:53:31,920
Speaker 2: named Lee picked up the finish. The great news is ed.

938
00:53:32,000 --> 00:53:36,279
Speaker 2: Andre sends out an email to all these seventeen customers. Success.

939
00:53:36,719 --> 00:53:41,120
Speaker 2: It worked. Our scheme worked, and this this got us

940
00:53:41,160 --> 00:53:44,040
Speaker 2: past the hump of all suspicion. There was a there

941
00:53:44,080 --> 00:53:46,799
Speaker 2: was a guy with the last Nameku in Texas who

942
00:53:46,960 --> 00:53:49,600
Speaker 2: had been warning people, Hey, I think this Ted Nelson

943
00:53:49,600 --> 00:53:54,560
Speaker 2: guy is a US Customs agent. But so he didn't

944
00:53:54,560 --> 00:53:56,359
Speaker 2: want to order. He was supposed to order on that

945
00:53:56,400 --> 00:53:58,160
Speaker 2: first ship, and he was like, I'm not doing it

946
00:53:58,160 --> 00:54:01,680
Speaker 2: because I think Ted's I think Ted's a fed. And

947
00:54:02,239 --> 00:54:05,360
Speaker 2: once this shipment went through, all of a sudden, Tom

948
00:54:05,680 --> 00:54:08,400
Speaker 2: Tomko was his name, he put his orders in because

949
00:54:08,400 --> 00:54:14,960
Speaker 2: now he was convinced this was the legit deal. Oh yeah, well.

950
00:54:14,880 --> 00:54:16,040
Speaker 1: That was kind of a coup with.

951
00:54:16,080 --> 00:54:22,280
Speaker 2: Sale exactly, a coup right on the bad guys. So yeah,

952
00:54:22,400 --> 00:54:26,160
Speaker 2: very quickly after that, so now we're this is into July,

953
00:54:26,440 --> 00:54:32,840
Speaker 2: this is happening by late August, Andre Gunawan makes arrangements

954
00:54:32,880 --> 00:54:36,480
Speaker 2: to send twelve more fish to the US. So now

955
00:54:36,520 --> 00:54:39,160
Speaker 2: we kind of have a dilemma because these are endangered fish.

956
00:54:39,200 --> 00:54:41,359
Speaker 2: We suspect they're coming from the wild. We don't think

957
00:54:41,360 --> 00:54:48,640
Speaker 2: they're coming from captive breeding facilities. And basically we got

958
00:54:48,840 --> 00:54:50,560
Speaker 2: we can't let this go on too long. We want

959
00:54:50,560 --> 00:54:53,480
Speaker 2: to catch the people involved. We don't want to just

960
00:54:53,520 --> 00:54:55,759
Speaker 2: have two people we catch. We want to you know,

961
00:54:56,160 --> 00:54:58,640
Speaker 2: take down Andrey. We want to take down this customer base.

962
00:54:59,440 --> 00:55:02,160
Speaker 2: But we can't. But you know, the endangered fist trade

963
00:55:02,160 --> 00:55:05,400
Speaker 2: go on because we are it's not we are trying

964
00:55:05,440 --> 00:55:09,360
Speaker 2: to protect these animals. So we decide, okay, we're going

965
00:55:09,440 --> 00:55:10,880
Speaker 2: to do this next shipment and now we're going to

966
00:55:10,880 --> 00:55:14,960
Speaker 2: take everybody down. And sure enough, August, end of August

967
00:55:15,000 --> 00:55:18,360
Speaker 2: rolls around and the next shipment of twelve I'm sorry

968
00:55:18,360 --> 00:55:23,480
Speaker 2: ten fish comes in and we arranged to make a

969
00:55:23,520 --> 00:55:27,319
Speaker 2: personal delivery to the people in LA and I tell them,

970
00:55:27,520 --> 00:55:29,320
Speaker 2: all of the customers in LA need to meet me

971
00:55:29,360 --> 00:55:34,480
Speaker 2: at Target parking lot in Carson, California. And I said,

972
00:55:34,480 --> 00:55:36,400
Speaker 2: I'm delivering them in person because I'm afraid, you know,

973
00:55:36,400 --> 00:55:39,359
Speaker 2: I don't want them to die. Blah blah blah. So

974
00:55:39,400 --> 00:55:43,360
Speaker 2: sure enough, all of the people that had lived in

975
00:55:43,400 --> 00:55:46,040
Speaker 2: the LA area who were customers showed up at Target,

976
00:55:46,560 --> 00:55:49,160
Speaker 2: and we had a massive team of Fish and wild

977
00:55:49,160 --> 00:55:53,640
Speaker 2: Life special agents and Homeland Security special agents stationed around

978
00:55:53,680 --> 00:55:55,759
Speaker 2: the parking lot. We had a surveillance dand sitting in

979
00:55:55,760 --> 00:55:58,640
Speaker 2: the middle of the parking lot watching everybody. And I

980
00:55:58,760 --> 00:56:01,360
Speaker 2: met as Ted Nels at the back of my undercover

981
00:56:01,440 --> 00:56:06,239
Speaker 2: vehicle with these customers. I showed them the fish. Everything's recorded.

982
00:56:07,040 --> 00:56:13,320
Speaker 2: We had them actually sign a document saying they'd received it,

983
00:56:11,440 --> 00:56:15,880
Speaker 2: and it was beautiful. And then the coup de gras

984
00:56:16,280 --> 00:56:19,719
Speaker 2: was something I didn't expect We were all everybody was

985
00:56:19,760 --> 00:56:22,320
Speaker 2: so giddy and happy that they were receiving these valuable

986
00:56:22,320 --> 00:56:24,840
Speaker 2: and endangered fish. We all agreed to pose for a

987
00:56:24,840 --> 00:56:30,680
Speaker 2: photograph at the back of my vehicle together. So I

988
00:56:30,760 --> 00:56:33,720
Speaker 2: remember later my boss was like, I saw you posing

989
00:56:33,719 --> 00:56:35,480
Speaker 2: for the photo, and I was like, what in the

990
00:56:35,560 --> 00:56:36,560
Speaker 2: hell is he doing?

991
00:56:37,160 --> 00:56:41,680
Speaker 1: But I can tell you that stakes exhibit A one exactly.

992
00:56:42,200 --> 00:56:44,400
Speaker 2: And what I really wanted was I wanted them to

993
00:56:44,440 --> 00:56:47,439
Speaker 2: be holding their fish in the bag. And I said

994
00:56:47,480 --> 00:56:49,080
Speaker 2: to him, I said, hey, why don't you guys hold

995
00:56:49,080 --> 00:56:52,400
Speaker 2: your fish for the photo? And on the mic, you know,

996
00:56:52,440 --> 00:56:55,719
Speaker 2: I'm recording everything. One of the guys says, hell, no,

997
00:56:55,800 --> 00:56:58,000
Speaker 2: I'm not going to hold an illegal fish while I'm

998
00:56:58,000 --> 00:57:01,800
Speaker 2: in a photograph. Now that's exhibit ME. Just got better,

999
00:57:02,160 --> 00:57:03,120
Speaker 2: It just got better.

1000
00:57:03,280 --> 00:57:06,960
Speaker 1: Yeah, I made that, prosecutor. I mean, you want to

1001
00:57:07,000 --> 00:57:11,000
Speaker 1: talk about dancing. Now, I have to ask one question

1002
00:57:11,040 --> 00:57:14,360
Speaker 1: about the sure sure was your shirt own.

1003
00:57:14,239 --> 00:57:18,840
Speaker 2: Or fully clothed? Fully clothed?

1004
00:57:18,920 --> 00:57:20,480
Speaker 1: Oh well, we don't care about that. Move on.

1005
00:57:20,960 --> 00:57:23,560
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, but I did have the fancy big mustache

1006
00:57:24,400 --> 00:57:24,880
Speaker 2: right on.

1007
00:57:25,160 --> 00:57:28,480
Speaker 1: Okay, So this is.

1008
00:57:28,440 --> 00:57:31,280
Speaker 2: What we call a deliver bust in the law enforcement world.

1009
00:57:31,280 --> 00:57:35,160
Speaker 2: You're familiar with those, Cheryl. When everything's done, I gave

1010
00:57:35,200 --> 00:57:39,400
Speaker 2: the signal and I walked away and income the lights

1011
00:57:39,400 --> 00:57:42,040
Speaker 2: and sirens and the agents and their tactical gear, and

1012
00:57:42,040 --> 00:57:45,800
Speaker 2: everybody got arrested. Now, the funny thing was we made

1013
00:57:45,800 --> 00:57:49,080
Speaker 2: it look like I got arrested as well. And the

1014
00:57:49,120 --> 00:57:51,240
Speaker 2: thing that really cracked me up is later that night,

1015
00:57:51,280 --> 00:57:53,680
Speaker 2: I was back at the office. Everybody had been processed,

1016
00:57:54,400 --> 00:57:57,080
Speaker 2: and I got an email from one of the guys

1017
00:57:57,080 --> 00:57:59,800
Speaker 2: who'd lived outside of LA and the word had gotten

1018
00:57:59,800 --> 00:58:02,240
Speaker 2: out there had been an arrest because he sent me

1019
00:58:02,360 --> 00:58:05,880
Speaker 2: an email to Ted Nelson saying he'd reconsidered it and

1020
00:58:05,920 --> 00:58:10,800
Speaker 2: he'd like to cancel his order. And I didn't even

1021
00:58:10,800 --> 00:58:13,280
Speaker 2: answer the email because I was like, too late, You're

1022
00:58:13,280 --> 00:58:18,240
Speaker 2: already under indictment, you know, so nice yeah, nice Trie.

1023
00:58:18,280 --> 00:58:22,760
Speaker 2: As a result of this, we indicted. We didn't get

1024
00:58:22,800 --> 00:58:26,240
Speaker 2: all seventeen of the customers that were originally on the list,

1025
00:58:26,360 --> 00:58:30,160
Speaker 2: but we'd indicted seven people, and every single one of

1026
00:58:30,200 --> 00:58:32,720
Speaker 2: them was indicted for a felony, and every single one

1027
00:58:32,760 --> 00:58:35,920
Speaker 2: of them once they saw the evidence we had against them,

1028
00:58:35,920 --> 00:58:40,800
Speaker 2: between email correspondence, recorded undercover phone calls, recorded in person meetings,

1029
00:58:41,240 --> 00:58:43,160
Speaker 2: I forgot to mention some of these guys were so

1030
00:58:43,240 --> 00:58:45,960
Speaker 2: paranoid about me they wanted to meet beforehand. So we

1031
00:58:46,040 --> 00:58:49,120
Speaker 2: had some in person meetings in la where I'd meet

1032
00:58:49,160 --> 00:58:52,000
Speaker 2: with them with another undercover agent posing as my girlfriend

1033
00:58:52,080 --> 00:58:55,480
Speaker 2: or whatever, and I'd reassure them, yeah, I'm a regular guy,

1034
00:58:55,720 --> 00:59:00,800
Speaker 2: and they'd walk away satisfied. There was no defeating the

1035
00:59:00,840 --> 00:59:03,439
Speaker 2: evidence that we had, and every single one of those

1036
00:59:03,520 --> 00:59:07,640
Speaker 2: seven people, with the exception of Gunawan, pleaded guilty and

1037
00:59:07,720 --> 00:59:10,760
Speaker 2: they were all sentenced. They all have felonies on their record,

1038
00:59:11,640 --> 00:59:15,000
Speaker 2: They had pretty significant fines, They weren't sent to jail,

1039
00:59:15,040 --> 00:59:18,240
Speaker 2: they had long probations, two to three year probation periods,

1040
00:59:18,880 --> 00:59:22,400
Speaker 2: and we never saw them ever engaged in anything like

1041
00:59:22,440 --> 00:59:26,520
Speaker 2: this ever. Again, the fun thing was about this guy

1042
00:59:26,680 --> 00:59:29,880
Speaker 2: Lee in Kentucky. One of the things we wanted to

1043
00:59:29,920 --> 00:59:32,520
Speaker 2: do was we wanted to recover those two fish we'd

1044
00:59:32,560 --> 00:59:36,880
Speaker 2: already delivered, So we had agents in San Diego and

1045
00:59:37,120 --> 00:59:41,520
Speaker 2: Kentucky execute search warrants at those houses, and luckily we

1046
00:59:41,520 --> 00:59:43,840
Speaker 2: were able to recover those two fish. They were still

1047
00:59:43,840 --> 00:59:46,840
Speaker 2: at the house, but during that search warrant in Kentucky,

1048
00:59:46,880 --> 00:59:51,200
Speaker 2: the agents interviewed the guy named Lee, and Lee acted

1049
00:59:51,240 --> 00:59:53,960
Speaker 2: like he was cooperating, but he lied, lied, led. He

1050
00:59:54,560 --> 00:59:56,800
Speaker 2: said he wasn't sure who the guy was in LA,

1051
00:59:56,840 --> 00:59:59,600
Speaker 2: which would have been Ted Nelson. He gave a different

1052
00:59:59,640 --> 01:00:03,760
Speaker 2: name for Andre Gunnawan. He basically tried to misdirect our

1053
01:00:03,800 --> 01:00:08,800
Speaker 2: agents at all every opportunity, which is another federal crime.

1054
01:00:08,960 --> 01:00:11,000
Speaker 2: You cannot lie to a federal agent. You don't have

1055
01:00:11,040 --> 01:00:13,000
Speaker 2: to talk to a federal agent. But if you'd say,

1056
01:00:13,160 --> 01:00:16,160
Speaker 2: if you do, as Martha Stewart, Mary and Jones and

1057
01:00:16,200 --> 01:00:19,360
Speaker 2: many others have learned, if you do talk to a

1058
01:00:19,360 --> 01:00:24,959
Speaker 2: federal agent and you lie, that's a felony. So later

1059
01:00:25,040 --> 01:00:27,840
Speaker 2: that night, after our agents in Kentucky had conducted a

1060
01:00:27,840 --> 01:00:30,680
Speaker 2: search warrant at his house and interviewed him, he actually

1061
01:00:30,680 --> 01:00:35,480
Speaker 2: called me Ted Nelson on my undercover phone and told me, hey, Ted,

1062
01:00:35,600 --> 01:00:38,360
Speaker 2: watch out the fish and Wildlife Services after you. They

1063
01:00:38,360 --> 01:00:40,720
Speaker 2: were at my house today, they did a search warrant,

1064
01:00:40,760 --> 01:00:43,880
Speaker 2: they seized the fish. They're coming for you. Don't worry.

1065
01:00:44,160 --> 01:00:51,480
Speaker 2: I lied and told them all these stories about you know. Yeah,

1066
01:00:51,560 --> 01:00:53,840
Speaker 2: and of course that's all recorded too.

1067
01:00:53,920 --> 01:00:54,760
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah.

1068
01:00:55,600 --> 01:00:59,120
Speaker 2: So the moral of the story is we shut them down.

1069
01:00:59,240 --> 01:01:02,800
Speaker 2: We shut down, and we stopped something that could have

1070
01:01:03,360 --> 01:01:07,120
Speaker 2: if an agent hadn't seen that original post by Andre,

1071
01:01:07,280 --> 01:01:09,840
Speaker 2: somebody else would have picked it up. Somebody else would

1072
01:01:09,840 --> 01:01:11,760
Speaker 2: have helped him do this smuggling scheme and they would

1073
01:01:11,800 --> 01:01:12,680
Speaker 2: have gotten away with it.

1074
01:01:13,280 --> 01:01:16,480
Speaker 1: And that again is the lesson, because if they can

1075
01:01:16,520 --> 01:01:21,000
Speaker 1: get a fish into this country, they can get a weapon. Absolutely,

1076
01:01:21,200 --> 01:01:23,760
Speaker 1: And I think that's another brilliant move when you bring

1077
01:01:23,800 --> 01:01:27,520
Speaker 1: in Homeland Security and everybody else to show them from

1078
01:01:27,560 --> 01:01:32,120
Speaker 1: a chat room, this is where we got to San Diego, Kentucky, etc.

1079
01:01:32,840 --> 01:01:35,600
Speaker 1: Now I do have one question. When you got the

1080
01:01:35,640 --> 01:01:37,040
Speaker 1: fish back, where do they go?

1081
01:01:37,560 --> 01:01:39,880
Speaker 2: And that's another important thing. When you're a Fish and

1082
01:01:39,880 --> 01:01:44,200
Speaker 2: Wildlife special agent, your evidence is often alive and requires

1083
01:01:44,400 --> 01:01:46,760
Speaker 2: care feeding, and you have to find a home for it.

1084
01:01:46,840 --> 01:01:49,920
Speaker 2: Right You don't want it to get back into the market.

1085
01:01:50,040 --> 01:01:52,320
Speaker 2: It can't go back to Indonesia because you don't know

1086
01:01:52,360 --> 01:01:55,080
Speaker 2: where it came from, and it can't be reintroduced or

1087
01:01:55,120 --> 01:01:57,600
Speaker 2: read or put back in the wild because it might

1088
01:01:58,640 --> 01:02:03,280
Speaker 2: introduce a disease. So the good news is we recovered

1089
01:02:03,360 --> 01:02:06,000
Speaker 2: we had all twelve fish, they all lived, and they

1090
01:02:06,000 --> 01:02:08,480
Speaker 2: were all transferred to the Pittsburgh Zoo, which of course

1091
01:02:08,560 --> 01:02:11,840
Speaker 2: is an accredited Zoo under the Association of Zoos and

1092
01:02:11,880 --> 01:02:16,120
Speaker 2: Aquariums and they went to the you know, they became

1093
01:02:16,160 --> 01:02:19,640
Speaker 2: an educational exhibit at the Pittsburgh Zoo. So as far

1094
01:02:19,680 --> 01:02:22,120
Speaker 2: as I was concerned as an agent, that's a good result.

1095
01:02:22,440 --> 01:02:25,240
Speaker 1: That's outstanding. And I tell you, you know, I run

1096
01:02:25,280 --> 01:02:28,080
Speaker 1: the Wildlife CSI Academy, which you and I have talked about,

1097
01:02:28,720 --> 01:02:32,280
Speaker 1: and just the idea that now they are a teaching

1098
01:02:32,360 --> 01:02:35,520
Speaker 1: tool is to me a tremendous ending.

1099
01:02:36,080 --> 01:02:38,640
Speaker 2: That's one of the things whenever I donated, you know,

1100
01:02:38,800 --> 01:02:43,360
Speaker 2: seized animals to a facility like that, I always I

1101
01:02:43,360 --> 01:02:45,360
Speaker 2: couldn't force them to do it, but I always encourage

1102
01:02:45,360 --> 01:02:48,439
Speaker 2: them to include some type of educational placard to let

1103
01:02:48,440 --> 01:02:51,560
Speaker 2: the public know that these animals were recovered during a

1104
01:02:51,600 --> 01:02:55,720
Speaker 2: criminal wildlife trafficking investigation, just so people know, you know,

1105
01:02:55,800 --> 01:02:59,520
Speaker 2: these things are they're not They're expendable.

1106
01:03:00,440 --> 01:03:04,680
Speaker 1: Yep. Absolutely well ed newcomer. I cannot thank you enough

1107
01:03:04,880 --> 01:03:07,720
Speaker 1: for coming on to Zone seven, for being just a

1108
01:03:07,720 --> 01:03:10,200
Speaker 1: phone call away if we have a situation with an

1109
01:03:10,200 --> 01:03:13,760
Speaker 1: animal that we need help with, and your career speaks.

1110
01:03:13,400 --> 01:03:17,160
Speaker 2: For itself, well you know what, thank you for having

1111
01:03:17,200 --> 01:03:18,960
Speaker 2: me on. And if you don't mind. I'll make one

1112
01:03:19,000 --> 01:03:21,880
Speaker 2: more plug for my podcast, and in the podcast, I'm

1113
01:03:21,920 --> 01:03:25,720
Speaker 2: not telling my stories. I'm interviewing other agents and state

1114
01:03:25,720 --> 01:03:30,320
Speaker 2: wildlife officers who have similar, really great stories from their careers.

1115
01:03:30,360 --> 01:03:32,960
Speaker 2: So anybody who's interested in this kind of true crime,

1116
01:03:33,680 --> 01:03:36,000
Speaker 2: don't feel like you're going to hear the newcomer story

1117
01:03:36,000 --> 01:03:39,000
Speaker 2: when you tune into Nature's Secret Service, because you're going

1118
01:03:39,000 --> 01:03:42,120
Speaker 2: to hear some awesome stories from some awesome federal and

1119
01:03:42,160 --> 01:03:44,160
Speaker 2: state officers who work on wildlife crime.

1120
01:03:44,640 --> 01:03:49,240
Speaker 1: Love it Nature Secret Service, y'all get to it. The stories.

1121
01:03:49,280 --> 01:03:51,880
Speaker 1: You will not believe what is going on in the

1122
01:03:51,920 --> 01:03:55,640
Speaker 1: wildlife Arena. I'm just telling you you won't believe it.

1123
01:03:55,680 --> 01:03:57,280
Speaker 1: But Ed, thank you so much.

1124
01:03:57,680 --> 01:04:00,880
Speaker 2: You're welcome, Cheryl. It's been a real pleasure. I've enjoyed it,

1125
01:04:00,920 --> 01:04:02,480
Speaker 2: and I hope we can do it again sometime.

1126
01:04:03,120 --> 01:04:04,800
Speaker 1: I'm going to end Zone seven the way that I

1127
01:04:04,840 --> 01:04:07,480
Speaker 1: always do with a quote, and I want you all

1128
01:04:07,520 --> 01:04:10,960
Speaker 1: to think about Ed's mustache, because it was the inspiration

1129
01:04:11,120 --> 01:04:15,080
Speaker 1: for this quote. My dad worked for the Fish and

1130
01:04:15,120 --> 01:04:18,600
Speaker 1: Wildlife Service and he worked for the Department of the Interior,

1131
01:04:19,000 --> 01:04:22,400
Speaker 1: you know, like the federal government. And consequently I spent

1132
01:04:22,560 --> 01:04:26,560
Speaker 1: a lot of time outdoors in my life. I even

1133
01:04:26,600 --> 01:04:31,919
Speaker 1: became the voice of Smoky the Bear, Sam Elliott. I'm

1134
01:04:32,000 --> 01:04:34,360
Speaker 1: Cheryl McCollum and this is Zone seven.