Zhifei Li, 29, said he had sold 30 raw rhino horns for as much as
$17,500 each to Chinese factories that carve them into cups that are
thought to improve health, according to federal prosecutors.
"The brutality of animal poaching, wherever it occurs, feeds the
demand of a multibillion-dollar illegal international market," said
Paul Fishman, the U.S. Attorney for New Jersey, at a press
conference. "Zhifei Li's conviction is a warning to those who would
be lured by the profits of dealing in cruelty."
Among the horns sold, 13 were from black rhinos, which are
critically endangered and have a population of less than 5,000,
according to a statement issued by the U.S. Attorney's office.
Investigators began focusing on Li in 2011, when a government
informant sold two raw rhino horns to a middleman at the Vince
Lombardi rest stop on the New Jersey stretch of Interstate 95. That
middleman sold the horns to a New York City antiques dealer who
worked directly for Li, prosecutors said.
The horns were wrapped in duct tape and hidden in porcelain vases.
Labeled as handicrafts on customs documents, they were smuggled to
Li's connections in Hong Kong, and then on to the factories in
mainland China, prosecutors said.
In total, Li's New York and New Jersey connections helped him buy 25
raw rhino horns, including 13 black rhino horns, they said.
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Li also bought $500,000 worth of carved ivory items from U.S.
auction houses, which were not named, and several other horns and
elephant tusks from connections in Texas and Florida, according to
the release.
Shortly before traveling to Miami for an antiques fair, Li texted
his Queens, New York, art dealer that he had $500,000 to spend on
rhino horns and ivory, prosecutors said.
An undercover U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service agent arrested Li in a
Miami hotel room, where the agent sold Li two government-supplied
Black Rhino horns worth $59,000 each.
Li pleaded guilty to 11 counts of smuggling, illegal wildlife
trafficking and lying on customs documents. While he already
forfeited $3.5 million to the Department of Justice, and he could
face up to 10 years in prison for each charge.
(Reporting by Elizabeth Dilts; editing by Scott Malone and Gunna
Dickson)
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