A ring that smuggled and then transacted international endangered species, including cobras and Yangtze alligators, has been sent to trial.
On the 6th, the Seoul Eastern District Prosecutors Office Criminal Division 2 (Director General Lee Seung-hak) said it indicted ringleader A and three others, including smugglers, on charges of violating the Customs Act and the Wildlife Protection and Management Act for smuggling endangered species and conducting illegal transactions.
Korea designates wild species at risk of extinction as protected and complies with the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), which restricts international transactions.
Ringleader A is accused of smuggling 200 alien species over 14 occasions from Nov. 2023 to Aug. 2024 and transferring 54 international endangered species.
A was indicted and detained, and the remaining smugglers were reportedly indicted without detention on suspicion of conspiring with A. They are accused of conducting illegal transactions of the smuggled animals on an online reptile specialty forum.
It was confirmed that A's ring was also behind the discovery last month of a Siamese crocodile along Soyang Stream in Chang-dong, Yeoju, Gyeonggi Province, and an alien snake in an apartment in Yangju.
They communicated via social media (SNS) with on-the-ground sellers in Southeast Asia, including Indonesia, Vietnam and Thailand, and purchased wild animals.
To avoid customs detection, they mainly bound the mouths of juvenile individuals with tape or used compression packaging, then put them in snack canisters or plastic boxes and sent them as checked baggage. There were also cases where they were placed in underwear and carried on board.
The ring was traced after the Han River Basin Environmental Office referred E, who had been caught by Incheon Airport Customs in July last year while smuggling wild animals, to prosecutors.
Through supplementary investigation, prosecutors confirmed there were additional smugglers besides E, and found that one of them was an accomplice of A.
A had previously been reported once, but received a non-referral disposition after an accomplice falsely confessed it was an act committed alone; even after that, A avoided punishment by using the same method and continued the crimes.
Prosecutors said, "We seized 95 wild animals that were being kept in apartments, villas and gosiwon and entrusted them to the National Institute of Ecology (NIE)," and added, "We will respond strictly in close cooperation with related agencies such as the environmental office."