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Among those charged in the second round of “Operation Crash” arrests is a man named Zhifei Li, a 28-year-old Chinese national who was indicted by federal grand juries in both Newark and Miami for international smuggling of rhinoceros horns, U.S. Attorney Paul J. Fishman announced this afternoon.
Shusen Wei, a 44-year old Chinese business executive and an associate of Li, was charged in Manhattan for his alleged role in smuggling “libation cups” carved from rhinoceros horns from New York to Li via Hong Kong.
An unindicted co-conspirator operated out of the Little Ferry area, the government alleges.
In fact, the indictment says, four of the deals went down in Little Ferry — two of them this month — and one in Ridgefield.
Federal authorities also said that Li, while attending last month’s Original Miami Beach Antique Show with Wei, bought two endangered black rhinoceros horns from an undercover U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service agent in a Miami Beach hotel room for $59,000.
Li “asked if the undercover officer could procure additional rhinoceros horns and mail them to his company in Hong Kong,” Fishman said.
Federal agents interviewed Wei, who told them about Li’s activities, the U.S. attorney said.
After being served with a grand jury subpoena to appear in Newark, Wei left Miami for New York en route to China – but not before asking an informant to pay off an Fish & Wildlife agent. He was arrested him as he tried to board the flight at JFK Airport 10 days ago.
South African authorities this week said at least 96 rhinoceros have been killed by poachers so far this year, a skyrocketing increase from the 15 or so usually taken down each year.
Demand has driven them, with the horns fetching the same as the U.S. street value of cocaine.
Federal agents made the first series of arrests in “Operation Crash” nearly a year ago, seizing $2 million in cash, diamonds, Rolex watches and gold ingots, along with 37 horns shipped to, among other places, nail salons.
The accused smugglers targeted rhinos, which are an endangered species, for buyers who believe the horns cure cancer, federal authorities said (The government estimates there are only 30,000 or so genuine rhinos remaining, with hundreds of sub species).
One of them, an antiques dealer, was seen sawing off the horns of a taxi-dermied rhino head in the parking lot of an Illinois hotel after he bought it from an undercover agent, a federal complaint says.
Another brought a scale and envelopes filled with cash to a New Jersey Turnpike service station after phone calls and an exchange of emailed photos led to the arranged sale of two black rhino horns for $35,000 ($5,000 per pound), according to a complaint filed by a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service agent in Newark.
Last year, a brazen gang of four ripped a rhino head from the wall of a German museum and made off with the horns. The crew struck again in England but were fended off by museum staff.
Many of the horns intercepted by the U.S. government ended up in Vietnam and China before an 18-month undercover investigation led to the first raids in “Operation Crash,” led by the Justice Department and Department of the Interior, along with other federal and local law enforcement agencies that include ICE and the IRS.
According to the indictment filed in Newark, Li “conspired to smuggle more than 20 raw rhinoceros horns from the United States to Hong Kong in 2011 and 2012.
“Li wired hundreds of thousands of dollars over at least a year to a co-conspirator in the United States to fund purchases of rhinoceros horns,” The indictment says.
Federal authorities said Li’s co-conspirator smuggled the rhino horns in porcelain vases mailed to Hong Kong and China, in an effort to evade detection by U.S. officials.
“Li and his co-conspirator bought many of the horns in New Jersey from other members of the conspiracy,” the indictment says.
Li, who was arrested in January on charges previously filed in New Jersey, was indicted by a federal grand jury in Miami yesterday.
Wang, meanwhile, was charged with buying libation cups, ivory carvings and other items in the U.S. for Li (Drinking from such a cup is believed in China to bring good health).
“The rhino is an animal of prehistoric origin that is facing possible extinction because of an illegal trade for its horns on the black market that is driven by greed,” said Ignacia S. Moreno, Assistant Attorney General for the Environment and Natural Resources Division of the Department of Justice.
“Rhino horn traffickers continue to fuel the illegal demand for horn, demand that has led to hundreds of rhino deaths and put the white and black rhino in danger of extinction in the wild,” said U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Director Dan Ashe.
According to the U.S. Justice Department:
Rhinoceros are an herbivore species of prehistoric origin and one of the largest remaining mega-fauna on earth. All species of rhinoceros are protected under U.S. and international law. All black rhinoceros species are endangered. Rhino horns are composed of keratin, the same type of protein that makes up hair and fingernails.
Rhinoceros horn is a highly valued and sought-after commodity despite the fact that international trade has been largely banned since 1976. The demand for rhinoceros horn, which is used by some cultures for ornamental carvings, good luck charms or alleged medicinal purposes, has resulted in a thriving black market – a market that has escalated in recent years in both volume and per-unit profit.
The investigation resulting in the charges were conducted by the Special Investigations Unit of the FWS Office of Law Enforcement, with assistance from the Department of Homeland Security, Fishman said.
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