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Okay, people, listen up. Here we go. This is
Nature's Secret Service, the podcast that puts
you in the room with the men and women of wildlife
law enforcement. I'm your host, Ed Newcomer,
and today our guest is Erin Dean, former special
agent with the US Fish and Wildlife Service and
super good friend of mine. Erin Dean, thanks
for being on the show. Sure. Nice to be here,
Ed. You sound a little reluctant. You know, these
are not my favorite things to do. Yeah, you always
say that but you're actually really good at at
being us telling our story and being a spokesperson
for the Fish and Wildlife Service. So well, I
used to get paid to do this. That's true. I'm
not paying you. All favors. Well, you know Erin
you and I we work together for a long time. I
don't think it's any secret. You're my all -time
favorite agent You have a long background in
the Fish and Wildlife Service you like Marie
Palladini who was on the show before in this
season You you came on with the service fairly
young right soon after college Yes, in fact,
I graduated from college at University of Wyoming
and literally the next day left for Washington
DC to start my career with US Fish and Wildlife
Service. And what was that first job you had?
Because it was with law enforcement, but not
as a sworn officer, right? Correct. Yes. What
was that first job? It was a secretary. No kidding.
Yeah. But it was ironically, if I remember right,
it was for special ops, right? Correct. Yeah.
Yes. I worked. I started out working for some
of the greats from Fish and Wildlife Service.
Dick Marks, Rick Leach, George Morrison. Right.
Classic. Yes. Heroes of the service. Absolutely.
Yeah. That must have been crazy to go straight
from college to working not just in, you know,
Fish and Wildlife Service law enforcement, but
at the special operations unit where they were
doing a lot of long term kind of hardcore undercover
stuff. Yeah, I was I was pretty naive quite honestly.
You know, after I graduated from college and
growing up in Wyoming, you know, I really didn't
know anything about US Fish and Wildlife Service.
And when I was getting ready to graduate and
I didn't have a job and I called and I said,
Hey, is there anything that I could do in DC.
And he said, well, there's this one glamorous
position. As a secretary. As a secretary. And
I said, well, that sounds great. You know, I
really didn't know what I was going to do and
thought maybe I'd go back to school and maybe
go to law school or something like that. And
so, yeah, so I took it. I fell in love with the
agency. It was really pretty exciting as a 22
-year -old going back and being kind of dumped
into the special operations unit where all those
agents work deep undercover cases. Yeah, it was
pretty fun. Pretty cool. And here you got to
see like their reports and see how they prepared
for trial and all those different things that
they do. And it gave you a real early, you know,
kind of intro into the world of law enforcement,
which is cool. Exactly. I was, I always laugh
and joke that I was a professional Xeroxer. I
prepared prosecution notebooks and looked at
their reports and Listened to their tapes and
their undercover tapes and stuff like that. It
was you got to see all the crazy background stuff
that Nobody talks about on TV shows or anything
because it's the boring part of law enforcement
It's the writing up the reports and it's preparing,
you know as you said trial notebooks for Assistant
US attorneys to review and look at and get ready
to go to to trial. Oh, that's not very sexy.
Never gets included in the TV shows. No, for
sure. But but it gave me a good look at what
agents in the fish and wildlife did. And and
it was very exciting to me. And so I decided
to stick around. But you had you were you kind
of had a affinity for law enforcement going way
back, right? If I remember right, from when we
were agents together, you told me a story once
that shocked me because it was so similar to
my childhood. You had, I don't know how old you
were, 10, somewhere in there, you tell me, but
you had like a detective agency with your friend,
right? Yes, with my cousin, yes. We were private
investigators and we had our files and I believe
I was... Badge number 0 1 6 7. I remember that
to this day random number just a random number.
She was 0 1 6 6 and We did our investigations
throughout the neighborhood and and how old are
you then? It's probably I was probably 10. Uh
-huh. Yeah, I remember when you told me that
story I don't know where we were launcher and
just in the conference room, but it struck me
because Had an exact same experience at about
that same age 10 11 12 me and a friend of mine
We had our own detective agency in air quotes
We even went so far back then at the back of
a comic book used to build, you know There was
always like these little junk things you could
order They were either advertisements in the
back of comic books and one day we found these
special investigator wallet badges that you could
buy for you know a couple dollars We ordered
them right away, and I still have mine as my
first set of creds. You know Yeah, I don't I
didn't have a badge number, but I did have files
on some people in my neighborhood Think I had
a paper badge That's awesome, so you know it
was always kind of in our blood years in mind
to go into law enforcement So you but after you
were the secretary there as a young person you
eventually came on as a wildlife inspector, right?
Yes, so that secretary position was just a temporary
position And I stayed on for about 11 months
and then I started Applying for positions permanent
positions and I got hired out here in Los Angeles
As a wildlife inspector in 1993 We've talked
about wildlife inspectors on this show just briefly
before but since you were one Kind of explained
for our listeners what a lot wildlife inspector
is so in the office of law enforcement We have
special agents and we have a wildlife inspector.
So what does a wildlife inspector do and what
are they? What's the difference between them
and a special agent? So the wildlife inspectors
are the uniformed portion of Office of Law Enforcement
and they are tasked to enforce wildlife laws,
international wildlife laws, and inspect shipments,
live product, whatever, of wildlife coming in
and out of the United States. so they are stationed
at all ports of entry around the US and Look
for both declared wildlife Inspections to make
sure that they're all the paperwork is accurate,
but also are looking for Smuggled wildlife right
or illegal contraband wildlife right and then
of course the agents are the non -uniformed officers
and conduct investigations and conduct arrests
and search warrants and Right. Yeah, and then
specters are not armed. They don't have arrest
authority. And they're, they're kind of their
their scope of their job is limited to those
ports of entry you mentioned. So correct. They
might be at the border at the sea port or the
airport or the mail facility, but they're not
out and about like agents are trying to right
investigate crimes. Yeah. So You within that
job, so you were sent to LA as an inspector first,
right? Yes, and then but you have a unique kind
of Cred to your to your career and that is you
ended up becoming the very first Wildlife inspector
to run a canine detection unit team, right? You
were the the first and the only canine detection
wildlife inspector in the Fish and Wildlife Service
What what year was that? That was 1996 I believe
and I was so I came to LA and I spent a few years
in LA as an inspector and then I transferred
down to the border San Diego and worked down
there for several years and then while I was
down there we created this program and I was
the I was the first canine handler for law enforcement
but refuges actually did have One canine unit
Ahead of us, but for law enforcement. Yes. I
was the very first one Okay, and when when you
when Aaron's talking about refuges there She's
talking about the US Fish and Wildlife Service
Refuge system, which basically is kind of land
areas set aside as wildlife refuges similar to
a National Park or you know, it's public land,
but it's set aside for wildlife and they do have
their own uniform patrol officers that work those
properties. Yes. So I must have been crazy to
like start a program from nothing and get it
going. Yeah, it was. It was a lot of work actually.
And you know, I credit my supervisor at the time,
Larry Farrington, for letting us run with this
idea. You know, my coworkers down in San Diego,
the three of us worked together tirelessly trying
to create this program and to sell it to our
management, our upper management. And we started
off working with search and rescue ladies, handlers,
and then eventually trying to show that their
dogs could be trained to detect wildlife, live
and product. And so eventually I got my own dog
and actually went to training and trained this
dog how to detect different kinds of wildlife.
That's amazing. I remember I still have a picture
of Mason. Mason was your dog. I have a picture
of Mason actually on my refrigerator in my house.
Oh yes. My first baby. That's right. What was
Mason trained to detect? What kind of wildlife?
Do you remember? Yes, he was trained to detect
live birds because we worked Primarily down at
the border right and so we had a lot of bird
smuggling coming in parrot smuggling coming in
from Mexico, right? He was trained to find live
Reptiles because we also got a lot of that down
on the border and then we trained him on bear
bile Interesting. Yes bear gallbladder bile Because
we were a lot At a lot of the other ports of
entry, San Francisco, LA, we were having some
issues with people smuggling bear gall bladders
into the United States. As you know, so much
of wildlife trafficking is kind of... Cyclical
and it goes in fits and spurts and it changes
over time, right? So I remember yeah in the late
90s early 2000s There's a lot of parrots coming
across the border from Mexico being smuggled
Yeah, and then we did a lot of enforcement work
and that kind of went away for a while Yes, and
then other things pick up, you know reptiles
or sea cucumbers or whatever and then there we
take law enforcement action and we kind of tamp
it down and a dog is just Canine detection is
just so valuable for law enforcement. You can't
even really Articulate how valuable it is even
if the dogs not finding something Just the fact
that somebody sees a wildlife inspector running
a dog on a line of cars at the border That's
a huge deterrent Right? Because the public doesn't
know what that dog's trained to detect and how
good it is or how bad it is. Right? Yeah. So
there's the finding stuff is valuable, but also
just the presence of that dog in view of the
public is huge, right? For sure. And I remember
my trainer telling me, you know, you can train
a dog to find paper clips, if that's what you
want your dog to find. So you can you know, the
the sky's the limit on what you could train them.
Yeah. To be looking for, you know, whatever the
current wildlife smuggling trend is, you could
train your dog. Exactly. Find it. And you can
change the training over time, right? If wildlife,
if a new species is being smuggled, you could
have trained a mason to detect, you know, a certain
type, different animal, right? If you wanted
to, if you needed to, you could be trained. Yeah,
absolutely. And the cool thing about this, you
being the pioneer in this program, You there
is now an established canine detection program
throughout the fish and wildlife service I don't
know how many dogs the service has now, but it's
it's at least half a dozen probably yeah, and
they have full -time wildlife inspector canine
units and that is all because of you pioneering
that program so Super cool. It took a while to
get it going Yeah, and fish and wildlife stumbled
a little bit and implementing it and making it
effective. There was kind of a gap between when
I got hired as a special agent and I had to give
up my canine there were a few years but the service
picked it up a few years later and it's alive
and well today. Yeah and we'll come back to the
canine program a little bit because one of the
first dogs after yours when the program was initiated
nationwide LA Los Angeles is one of the first
places that got a dog and by that time you were
the supervisor in LA So we'll come back to that
in a second, but so now you you mentioned what
you became an agent at some point So you transitioned
from being a uniformed wildlife inspector now
to being a gun carrying arrest authority special
agent. What year was that? 2001 yeah, that was
the year before I got hired so shortly after
you became an agent and you were sent to LA right?
Yep. Yep I arrived in LA about a year later,
and my first impression, so you and I, I think
share, we share a mentor. I mean, Marie Palladini
is your mentor, I assume, right? For sure. For
sure. She is amazing. Mine too. Still is. Still
is, always was. And so we were both kind of working
with Marie and being supervised by Marie and
trained by Marie. You and I became fast friends.
But what I remember coming into the office was
I looked around at all the agents in the office.
We were fully staffed when I arrived in 2003.
You had been there about a year after coming
out of training and everybody was killing it.
Do you remember that? I mean, yeah, we were busy.
We were busy. I felt like every week we were
doing a search warrant or an arrest warrant or
some type of massive surveillance operation that
involved. Pretty much all of us. Yeah. Yeah the
good old days the good old days and I remember
looking around and and you and Neil Mendelsohn
all the agents and Bruce Talosky and just being
like How the hell am I gonna meet this bar that
these people are setting? And one instance in
particular you took me to the airport. I was
brand new I don't know what you were doing out
there, but you you took me out to the airport
to go do something related I think it was a bear
bile case actually that you were working on And
we, I can't really explain it, but I watched
you and just the way, you had only been on a
year and you were just working so fluidly with
U .S. Customs and Border Protection, making your
way through security at the airport, knowing
exactly where to go and what to look at. I thought,
holy shit, I'm never gonna be able to do this
job. It was impressive. That was all a facade.
Because I had no idea what I was doing. Well,
you definitely faked it well. You definitely
faked it well. So the big question I have for
you, since Marie is your mentor and my mentor,
between the two of us, who do you think is her
favorite? Who do you think is Marie's favorite?
Oh, me for sure. Good. That's the right answer.
No, I don't know. I don't think she has a favorite.
Oh, yeah. She likes us both the same. OK, that's
a better answer. All right, so you became an
agent and that leads us into well, actually,
what I want to talk about next, I think, is we'll
come back to the case that we're going to talk
about today. But after being an agent in L .A.
when when Marie Palladini retired, you ended
up becoming the resident agent in charge for
Southern California. You basically took over
her role. That must have been crazy. It was it
was big shoes to fill. Yeah, because. I mean
what we're talking about is not just the supervisor
of the LA office You were the agent in charge
of all of our law enforcement operations in Southern,
California So that's basically Kern County south
to the border of Mexico and then east to the
border of with what Arizona and Nevada, right?
Yeah. Yeah, it was it was an overwhelming position
When I took over I was pretty young in my career,
honestly. If I could go back, I probably would
have waited a bit to go into that type of position.
The fun times were investigating, doing those
cases and being out in the field. And it was
a huge territory to supervise and a large office
of inspectors, administrative staff, and agents.
We had the LAX airport, we had the largest border
down in San Diego, Mexico border, all those ports
of entry. We were, it was busy. Yeah, plus the
field office in San Diego, right? Correct. Where
we have special agents and wildlife inspectors
as well. Yes. That border you mentioned, It's
140 miles of border between California and Mexico.
And I forget how many border crossings are in
there. It's three or five. Five. Okay. Yeah.
So that's a huge responsibility, tons of illegal
wildlife coming across from Mexico into the US.
All kinds, right? Fish, you even intercepted
a tiger cub at one point coming across the border
there. I mean, your agents did. Yes. Yeah. And
then we're also talking about an area with 23
plus million people in it. and the largest county
in the United States, the largest seaport in
the United States. So huge, huge responsibility.
What, you know, what was like the most rewarding
aspect? So how long were you there? The rack,
the resident agent in charge? 14 years, 14 years
is the most rewarding. Do you have anything that
jumps out at you as being like the most rewarding
aspect of being a supervisor? You know, honestly,
you know, we were joking about the me being interviewed
and not really enjoying that. But I feel like
we kind of put LA on the map because we did do
a lot of media. We did do a lot of interviews
and getting our word out. And I really felt like
that was an important part of my job. even though
I didn't really, you know, enjoy the interview
and whatnot, but it was pretty important to talk
about our cases and, you know, all of that comes
with funding and awareness and deterrence and
all of that, so. Yeah, I mean, at its core, the
American people are taxpayers. They pay our salary.
We do work for them. They need to know what we
do, right? there's that. Yeah. And then the more
the more information you get out about how good
your agents are and how good they do their job,
the more that deters people from potentially
committing crime who might have been leaning
that way. Right? Yeah. You know, I think a lot
of times with other people within the Fish and
Wildlife Service, particularly some people at
headquarters, you know who I'm talking about,
never understood why LA did get in the media
as much as it did. And You know, it just doesn't
take a rocket scientist to figure out that number
one, Los Angeles, Southern California for the
Fish and Wildlife Service has always been one
of the busiest field offices in the country.
Maria and I talked about that during her episode.
And the other thing is, this is the media capital
of the world, right? Yeah. So the US attorney
puts out a press release about any animal case.
Every news agency in Los Angeles picks it up.
And when they pick it up, News agencies across
the US pick it up So there's a huge opportunity
to get the word out that you very smartly Capitalized
on and you weren't afraid to talk to the media
even though you didn't like it Yeah, you know
the other thing you did too as the resident agent
in charge you made sure and then part of the
reason I know this so well is because about a
year after you became the resident agent charge
you hired me to be your deputy and There were
I think three areas of the country that had deputy
resident agents in charge. One was LA, New York,
and Miami, or the Florida area there. But so
I knew, you know, I worked with you as a deputy
for seven and a half years. And I knew how you
operated and what you were doing and what your
philosophy was. And the other thing you did,
you made sure we were very relevant in the law
enforcement community in Southern California.
Like you always had us What we're called the
head fed meetings. Yeah, those were quarterly.
I think right. I believe so Yeah, and that was
run by the United States attorney for the Central
District of California and it was every law enforcement
agency in the Metro, you know area attended those
and so we were there along with DEA FBI Secret
Service made us You put us in front of the US
Attorney's Office kept us very relevant and that's
all you I was just gonna say that it was You
know, it kept us in in touch with all the different
agencies being such a small agency You know,
we we needed help, you know out on surveillance
arrests search warrants and stuff like that and
you know, it's really about networking even in
law enforcement and so I felt like that was a
very important part of my job too is to to keep
US Fish and Wildlife Service relevant to these
other agents Agencies and you know, sometimes
they'd crack jokes and you know, but I'd always
go back Especially when we charged a case and
it was splashed all over the news I mean people
are just fascinated with our cases. There's there's
just no doubt about that. Yep And the U .S. Attorney's
Office knew that, you know, and so they capitalized
on that. And it was good for us, I felt. Yeah,
I agreed with you, especially as your deputy,
of course. You know, it's funny you say that
too, because I remember, I don't remember where
I was, but there was some meeting I was going
to attend and, you know, it hadn't started yet.
And somebody else, the FBI or somebody wanted
to get the meeting going. HSI agent told him
no. No, you have to wait till the fish cops get
here It's always some joke about us being the
fish cops. Oh for sure secret squirrels or whatever
they called us And that that's good good to talk
about that that the importance of networking
with other law enforcement agencies Not just
the state agencies like the California Department
of Fish and Wildlife But also all of our partner
federal agencies and the case I want to talk
to you about that you worked on when you were
an agent Is kind of a perfect example of that
and also a very interesting example of how Wildlife
crime often overlaps with other crimes, right?
You hear about it a lot like you hear this people
say that but you don't see a lot of examples
of it and the case you're going to talk about
today is a classic example of while a person
involved in wildlife crime, but also involved
in other really serious crimes and and the the
reason for that is because The person's a criminal,
right? They just out to make money. They don't
love animals. They aren't some sort of animal
lover who got a little carried away. They're
a crook. They're a criminal. And so, of course,
they're going to be involved in wildlife crime
and drugs or anything else, right? Whenever I
would go out and give a presentation trying to
explain what we did, I always gave the example,
you know, we're just like... FBI agents were
just like DEA agents, but you just switch that
commodity from drugs weapons Illegal immigration
to wildlife. Yeah, and it's just it's about money.
It's about money and in the end It's about money
and criminal activity and so many of these people
as you know when they get in front of a judge
they portray themselves as Someone who really
cares about wildlife and sometimes they even
try to say that they what they were doing was
trying to propagate wildlife or say somehow pervertedly
save wildlife and Unfortunately, sometimes judges
fall for those stories, right? They're just crooks.
Yeah, so we're gonna as a caveat Let me just
warn our listeners that we're gonna refer to
this criminal today by his first name only Craig
We're not gonna say the last name because this
person although was convicted This is not a person
you, now that you and I are both retired, we
don't carry guns every day. We don't want this
person targeting anybody in this case, right?
Whether it's us or informants. So we're gonna,
we're not gonna divulge the identity of informants
and we're just gonna refer this person as Craig
today. And if we let the last name slip, we're
gonna bleep it out. So if you hear a bleep, that's
what that's about. Exactly. So tell us about
this case involving Craig. My understanding is
this this case is actually started. The state
was investigating Craig. So the state of California,
California Department of Fish and Wildlife. What
were they looking at Craig for? And then how
did you get hooked into this whole thing? I believe
they were looking at Craig for the collection
of illegal wildlife in California waters like
state wildlife. So he was after fish. Yes. OK,
I believe that's what they were looking at him
for. OK, because I remember this. We were both
new agents. You were working on this. I didn't
for whatever reason. I don't know why I didn't
get involved in helping you on this case, but
maybe I was busy with my own stuff. I don't know.
But I remember there was a state game warden
who was doing a lot of surveillance. Yes. Rebecca
Hartman. Yes. And you would kind of help her
out with that, right? Oh, yes. That's how we
really. got to know each other. We had met at
the at the range, the qualifying shooting range,
firearms, and we would sometimes go with California
Fish and Wildlife Wardens to to qualify. And
she was working this case and with this guy involving
Craig. And it happened to his business happened
to be very close to our office. in Torrance.
And so, you know, I'd be working away at the
office doing something and I'd get a call from
Rebecca. Hey, I've been doing surveillance for
hours. Is there any way you can come and relieve
me just for a little bit so I could take a break?
I gotta go to the bathroom. Yes. Yes. And so
I'd, you know, race over there and you know,
we'd switch out cars and I'd Sit there and watch
for her for a bit until she had a little time
to go break and come back. Yes But at this point,
it's not a federal case, right? It's a state.
No, it was just a He was a licensed importer.
Okay exporter So we knew who he was certainly
right, but we were not looking at him for any
federal violations Yeah, and again for background
the crazy thing about working on wildlife criminal
investigations is that it is legal to import
and export wildlife. It happens all the time,
every day. I mean, I think the public would be
astonished to know how much live wildlife is
legally imported into the United States just
through the Los Angeles International Airport.
It's crazy. That was always pretty shocking to
me. Super shocking, especially fish, aquatic
animals in particular. It's by the millions every
year. So it can be done legally and there are
legal importers and exporters and that makes
criminal investigations sometimes extremely challenging
because of course the best way to smuggle is
to hide it in plain sight and make it look like
a legal shipment, right? Okay, so Craig was a
licensed importer exporter. But at this point,
it's a state investigation. How did how did it
make the transition to become a federal investigation
where you kind of took the lead? Well, to kind
of go back just a little bit. I remember hearing
on the news about a yacht that was carrying 50
illegal immigrants from Mexico. that was apprehended
by Coast Guard in the LA Harbor. And I remember
hearing that on the news, of course, had no connections
whatsoever to anything I was doing. But it was
a lot because, you know, 50 people in a, I think
it was like a 44 foot yacht. I remember there
was a pregnant woman, a three year old kid. That
was that was kind of a big story. Yeah. Right.
On the news. And so I remember hearing about
that. But I was honestly just at the office one
day and somebody came in to the front window
and said, can I talk to somebody about Craig?
Interesting. And that's how it all started. So
some informant just basically walked in and offered
to give information. Yeah. And it was related
to the did it turn out it was related to this
yacht. So yes. OK. This is one reason why so
critical when I was an agent. You were an agent.
I always took those phone calls from the public
and I always talk to those people who walked
in the front door. Yes. You know, nine times
out of 10, they're there to talk to you about
nothing. But that one time. Well, this guy was
a a gold mine. I mean, he had a lot of information
about Craig and what he was doing and basically
was, you know, asking for help. He's like, this
guy is, is crazy. And he's doing a lot of illegal
activity and I know it's not right and I don't
want to get caught up in it. And can you help
me? And so ended up signing him up as an informant
and What was his motivation though? Was it just
to, I mean, we don't want to give away who the
informant was, but were they more concerned with
Craig's committing illegal acts and I don't like
it, or were they afraid they were gonna get tangled
up in it somehow? You know, I don't know for
sure, but honestly, out of all my years of investigating
and dealing with informants and this guy was
just a genuinely good guy. Okay, the best kind
of informant. The one who does the best I ever
dealt with. They do it out of like the goodness
of their heart. That's a good informant. Usually,
he wasn't a criminal. Yeah, he did what I asked
him to do. He reported back to me. When I asked
him to I mean, he was a dream informant. And
that's unusual. That's the exception. Not the
rule. Most informants are very difficult to deal
with. Very unusual. Okay, so what what else would
did he tell you about Craig? Well that he basically
was involved in a lot of illegal activity everything
from Smuggling illegal fish into the United States
This guy was caught up in cocaine smuggling marijuana
smuggling Wow illegal immigrants Wow smuggling
Wow so true crossover. He's just Involved in
criminal activity period for the money for the
money. Yeah. Yeah. Okay, so drugs drugs people
and Fish and that's I guess the fish part is
why he chose to walk into a fish and wildlife
service law enforcement office, right? Yeah,
it was kind of funny because Because he came
to fish and wildlife we owned the case right
which is amazing because And you've probably
heard me talk about We were working this with
Homeland Security investigations. You brought
in Homeland Security after you got this tip?
Yeah, because it just involved so much. Yeah,
drugs and people, that'd be the agency, right?
Yes. And the agent that was assigned to co -investigate
with me was literally an absolute boob. I mean...
He and I started thinking about this. That happens
too, right? Oh my gosh. He would show up at our
meetings and all disheveled and like, I think
he had a drinking problem. Oh boy. And one day
he came and showed up and he was, he was like,
had a black eye, and he had gotten in a fight
at a concert or something that he attended, and
I was just like, oh my gosh. That's classic.
Yeah, and so probably because it involved fish,
probably their agency was like, oh, let's just
give this to this guy. Right. And whatever, you
know how I love 1970s police procedurals like
Adam 12 and dragnet, right? Yeah, I'm a little
I nerd out over those shows Yes, there's a classic
line from one of the old dragnets where Joe Friday,
you know he likes to give a lot of exposition
in his in his dialogue and he He says something
like, you know, the number one problem with law
enforcement officers is they're human, right?
So just like any other profession I don't know,
I always put it at about 10%. I don't care where
you work, if you work at a law firm or you work
at Costco, about 10 % of the employees are going
to be boobs. And you're kind of like, what? How
do they even function? That's true for law enforcement
too. We try to pick and choose the best of the
best, but some boobs get through. Sometimes they
become boobs later in their career. Yeah. I think
eventually this guy was... either asked to resign
or got fired. I'm not sure, but I ended up doing
most of the investigative work on all of it.
The drugs, the drugs, the people. And I mean,
I think after he placed a tracking device on
Craig's car. And Craig walked out the next morning
and saw the wires sticking up out of the hood
of the car. I think that's when, finally, they
were like, OK, this is bad. Oh, that's hilarious.
I don't think I knew that part of the story.
That is hilarious. Did Craig take the tracker
off the car? Yes. And that's the most amazing
thing. Now, Craig, by all evidence, is a pretty
good criminal. He sees that there's a tracker
on his car. He takes it off He destroys it the
debt, but that did not necessarily deter him
from continuing to be a criminal. Oh, no It's
amazing how brazen they are, you know, they know
they're being watched. Well, they're they're
greedy. They're greedy That's the bottom line.
They want money exactly. So what was the fish?
We've said fish, but what was it? They were called
clarion angel fish and they were found down in
the waters Mexican waters and Mexico protected
them and Didn't allow fishing collecting of them
and certainly didn't allow Exporting them to
anywhere other countries. So Craig's bringing
these clarion angelfish up alive alive for the
pet trade I assume very expensive aquarium fish
about at the time probably about $2 ,000 a piece
For a aquarium fish, yeah. I'll put a picture
of a clarion angelfish on the Nature's Secret
Service website. But they're crazy. I don't know
if it's clarion angelfish or not, but there is
a species of angelfish that's found off the coast
of California too. Is it clarions or no? It's
a different subspecies. Yes, and I can't remember.
And this is terrible. This shows how old we're
getting. But yes. They're kind of like... Visually
when you see one it kind of throws you because
they look like a giant goldfish in the ocean
and it kind of your brain kind of Has to adjust
for a second and be like why is our goldfish
in the ocean, right? Yeah, they're cool looking
fish. They're pretty the clarion Angelfish are
really pretty fish and that that's the insidious
side of the aquarium trade is that all saltwater
fish and corals are hard to keep alive, of course
And so this ends up becoming just a revolving
door of once once you introduce clarion angelfish
into the market, they become popular. Other people
see them and they want them. They're they're
not going to stay alive very long because they're
hard to keep alive. Yeah, anybody who ever had
a saltwater tank knows how difficult that is.
And so then there's demand for more and more
and more fish, right? It's a really insidious
trade. Well, and these were just so rare. Yeah.
And that's what people were after. You know,
nobody could get them. And so when they were
available, They were people were willing to pay
a lot of money for them. Do you remember how
many he brought across? I was able to track about
a hundred and sixty that we caught a lot of money
to yeah Three hundred and sixty thousand dollars.
I think is what we valued the shipment and that's
just what you found That's just what we found.
So who knows how many others? Yeah, and I'm quite
certain there were other shipments that we didn't
find but so and just so everybody's aware the
Obviously we know what why it's illegal to bring
drugs and and people into the country But with
regard to those fish if they're protected by
Mexican law and then they're brought into the
United States Or in other words if they're collected
in violation of Mexican law and brought into
the u .s. That would you were essentially doing
a Lacey act investigation, right? Right. Yeah
smuggling Lacey smuggling and Lacey because he
wouldn't declare them. So that's a smuggling.
Yep Both felonies smuggling and Lacey actor both
felonies. Yes. Okay. Cool. Yeah, you're you're
off and running. And aside from your partner
at HSI, who leaves something to be desired, you're
on to something good. Yeah, what would you do?
How'd you pursue the investigation? So a lot
of it was going and interviewing getting pieces
of information from the informant. going to conduct
interviews, trying to validate the information
that he was giving me, looking at documents,
going to interview other importers who had purchased
them, even some overseas people that he had,
Craig had shipped them to in Japan and Hong Kong.
Okay, so he'd sneak them into the US and then
from the US he would smuggle them again. other
countries in Asia. Yes. Yep. Meanwhile, doing
all of this other illegal activity, you know,
with the as it turns out, the the yacht was the
all of that was coordinated by Craig. He would
he hired two individuals to drive the yacht.
They'd rent the yacht here in the US and they
drive it down to Ensenada. Craig would arrange
all of that. he'd pile on the people on the yacht.
They'd drive it back up. Craig would drive through
the border, meet them back up in LA and direct
them where to go and to, you know, where it was
safe to unload and where they wouldn't get caught.
And then people would jump off of this boat.
And I believe. There were four instances at least
okay of this Interesting and that was all based
on the individuals that we interviewed that were
driving the boat She actually tracked down who
he hired to drive the yeah. Oh, yeah, they were
they were caught. Okay. Yeah that Coast Guard
caught on that 50 person load. And so then we
were working with those guys and they were charged,
of course, and convicted. But they also cooperated
and gave us some information on Craig. So yeah,
it was crazy. And then unbeknownst to me, DEA
was involved even before I got involved and had
conducted a search warrant on his house. They
had seized expensive watches, I think there were
some Rolex watches, a bunch of evidence money.
I think they see some duffel bags that had residue
marijuana residue. And I don't know why he was
never charged criminally for drug smuggling,
but we had a lot of information. He owned an
RV. And so we also think that on those yachts
coming in that there were drugs right fish and
people interesting and He would then take this
RV load it up and drive it all across the country
and drop off his loads Wow, so not just that
he was He was not he was an organizer, but also
distributor and very intimately involved in this
business This guy had a rap sheet a mile long.
No kidding. He was he had a lot going on. And
you know, that kind of brings me back to, you
know, the efforts you took as a rack to make
sure that Fish and Wildlife Service is dialed
in with other agencies. You know, this this illustrates,
I think, how agencies can kind of get into I
hate to use that the word silos because it's
so overused now. But they do kind of get into
this is our mission and we don't see beyond our
mission. Right. So like, when Coast Guard stopped
this boat the first time, the fish were on the
boat, right? 100 plus fish? We didn't get any
fish on that boat. Oh, okay. So Coast Guard wouldn't
have necessarily thought to reach out to Fish
and Wildlife because there was no fish on that
boat. Right. How did you know that fish were
coming across in the system? Based on interviews
and stuff. After the fact. And the informant
came in to tell you to, right? Okay, interesting.
So if Coast Guard DEA wouldn't have necessarily
had anything from that load that alerted them,
hey, fish and wildlife ought to be looped in
on this, right? Right. Gotcha. Okay. Yeah, that
was strictly just a so Coast Guard probably notified
DEA that they got a shit load of drugs. Yeah.
And that started that but nobody nobody saw fish
at that point. Correct. Got it. Got it. Okay.
So then they had that scene. So this is interesting
as an as a investigator, you get this informant
comes in tells you this story. How long did it
take you to connect it to that boat you had seen
on the news? Well, pretty quickly. Okay. Yeah,
because, you know, the information that the informant
was giving me, you know, we knew that he was
the one. Craig was the one responsible for coordinating
those trips. Okay. Yeah. So it was it was pretty.
So you put that together that it was this this
boat you'd seen on the news was a Craig. Yeah.
Okay. And then how So the informant then told
you he was bringing in the clarion angelfish?
Yes. Okay. And so that was through declared shipments.
You know, I told you he was a licensed importer.
Right. And so he was bringing in shipments of
legal stuff, but then threw in these clarion
angelfish as well on that on the angelfish portion
of the case. We also got information that he
was throwing them on the yachts as, you know,
like as an afterthought. Right. Oh, here's another
good way to make some extra money. Let's just
throw those on the boat as well. OK, so he had
multiple methods. He would do it on the boat
with the drugs and the people, but also just
ship them over. What would he do? Misdeclare
them or just hide them among other fish? He hit
him amongst other declared fish. So amongst legal
stuff. Mm hmm. Yeah, going back to what we talked
about at the beginning with the importance of
the wildlife inspectors job, right? Yeah, they're
gonna be cracking open these boxes these shipments
of legal and they're gonna be comparing the paperwork
declaration to what they see in the box So they
have to be able to know What the species are
they're looking at in that box not always easy.
Yeah, and again, we talked about how much stuff
comes in Yeah, and it's just You know, honestly,
I hate to say it, but sometimes you're just lucky.
Yeah, you happen to open the right box and boom,
there's something there that that wasn't on the
paperwork, right? So, you know, sometimes it's
like finding a needle in the haystack. It is
but you know, it's also about intelligent enforcement
and inspection work. I'm not going to give away
the detail on this. But you remember, we worked
on a coral case together for a while. And we
actually came up with a way to look at Shipments
and figure out whether they were suspicious or
not and I'm not gonna give any more detail But
yeah, we kind of we kind of hedged our bets as
to which shipments to do full inspections on
because we figured out a way to identify Shipments
just based on the paperwork about what was likely
to have contraband in it. Yeah. Yeah, so that's
all about intelligent and Using intelligence
and to make smart choices about what you look
at. Absolutely. Yep Yeah. You know, now that
we talk about this, I do remember going with
you to a few of these fish importers to look
at paperwork. That was incredibly dull. Yeah.
Yeah, not fun. Wasn't it to do those interviews?
I was always your second, so I didn't have to
interview these people. I was just there to take
notes. Yeah. I do remember going with you down
near LAX to some of these places. It had to be
the clarion fish, angelfish case. Yeah. But I'm
sure it was. Yeah. Because a lot of it was was
paperwork, a paperwork trail. So how do you prove
so you go back now and you're how did you find
the clarion angelfish? Did you find them in in
his warehouse? Or where were they? It was they
he distribute. He distributed them. I can't even
say that he distributed them so quickly after
he got them and that's what the case was a lot
of just going back and tracking and where did
they go and who bought them and who sold them
and so I was going to all these different places
and and seizing all of these fish that these
importers bought and you know a lot of the the
wholesalers that purchased from him they were
like, well, you know, you know, Craig had them.
And so I'm just going to purchase them and thought
they were off the hook. And I'm sure he told
them that they were legal, probably. And they
just accepted it. Yeah. So I was seizing, you
know, all of these clarion angelfish all over
L .A. that I could find. They some of them were
in the Midwest already. Some were in New York
already. Like I say, Japan, Hong Kong. So it
was pretty I assume those were hard those were
impossible to reach the overseas ones. Yeah.
Yeah. So then how do you see then you see okay
see you some how do you find that fish? So this
is what even today I was an agent for 20 years
that is that is a puzzle. Right? Yeah. So you
have this tip. How did you find your first fish?
Do you remember the first live fish at a customer?
I remember And this is strange that I remember
back in our warehouse and I was just looking
through some of the paperwork and and again,
I think it was something to do with the information
that the informant gave me and I was just looking
through all the paperwork and what they were
declared as and what they actually were and trying
to piece that together with who may have purchased
them from Craig and So you're just kind of looking
for suspicious sales that didn't quite look right
based on looking at Manifest from declared shipments
versus sales. I think that's how I did it You
know trying to weed through all that paperwork
and then figure out who had what and then the
information from the informant about who was
purchasing them and and then just going to their
businesses and talking to them and having them
show me the fish and then Ending up seizing them.
Yep. Thank you very much. What was the reaction
when you had seized fish from people? Were they
pissed or did they kind of understand? Some of
them were super pissed off, of course, because
they paid a lot of money. And then, you know,
the whole deal where I thought it was fine, you
know, Craig had him and he sold him to me and,
you know, but some of them were pretty smart
people that probably knew more about that industry
than any of us. And it was I was like, come on,
you know, really? You thought this was OK. You
know, so those people get charged or just take
the fish from them and you called that good.
Yeah, I think that's we ended up pretty good
punishment. Actually, they're out the money.
Yeah, we didn't charge anybody else. But in the
case, the of course, the driver of the yacht,
they were charged. and convicted. Oh, let me
stop you there. Okay. So next question is, you've
gone through the paperwork, you've recovered
some fish, where'd those fish go? Remember? Yes,
we donated them to the Aquarium of the Pacific.
Nice. So you found a home for them. And what
and I think a lot of people listening will probably
say, how come you can't send them back to Mexico?
There's a reason for that. And it's often very
difficult to do what we call repatriate wild
animals back to where they came from. Do you
want to explain it? Why they can't go back often?
Sometimes they can. Sometimes they can. I mean,
that's always our goal. And according to the
convention, that is actually what we are supposed
to do. The Convention on International Trade
in Endangered Species. Correct. Yeah. So but
there's a lot of, you know, factors to that,
you know, dealing with different international
countries, paperwork, disease factor. They don't
necessarily want to take back wildlife where
they don't know where it's been, what it's been
exposed to. So it's a lot of red tape. That's
a fundamental problem with repatriating wildlife
is that you're relying on the bad guy telling
you where they came from, right? Often that's
it, right? And that's a person who's Liar and
has an incentive to lie. So the country that
the animals came from it's often them that will
not take the animals back because They cannot
be assured that they know where to put the animals
back into the wild and if they were just to put
them back anywhere it could Cause disruptions
by introducing disease or a parasite that was
not existent in that population of fish before
right? So biologists really have a hard time
with it sometime. Yeah Understandably, right?
I mean, if the only times I've ever seen repatriation
work is when you know for sure that this is where
the animals came from, and there's a really good
history of what they were exposed to in transit
and in between, right? I think in my career,
I saw it maybe only once or twice that animals
were repatriated. Not very many times. I did
some birds one time, right? It's rare. Thank
you. It's very Very rare. And the other aspect,
too, of course, is you there's in the back of
your mind, you're always worried a little bit
about corruption somewhere in the chain. And
you don't want these animals to get back into
the into trade trade, the illegal trade. So,
yeah, there's that concern, not just with U .S.
officials, but foreign officials as well are
worried about corruption as well. And they don't
want those animals to get back into the trade.
That's tough. Okay, so so you've got some fish
back you found a home for them. They're gonna
live and they're gonna be safe How do you how'd
you how'd you like organize your charges? Who's
gonna get charged and who do you talk to about
getting these people charged? So luckily for
me, I took this case up to the US Attorney's
office and a wonderful prosecutor up there probably
the best that I ever worked with. Bill Carter,
William Carter. One of the best. One of the best,
yes. And he took this case. And I think he was
pretty interested in all of the facets of what
this guy was doing. Right. He saw that it was
a true criminal involved in crimes, all kinds
of crimes. Yes. Right. But Bill worked in the
environmental crime section at the U .S. Attorney's
Office. But I think because of that HSI investigation
and that agent that was working, Bill took it
all on. He did the whole deal, the wildlife,
the drugs, the people, all of it. He did the
wildlife and the illegal immigration. Oh, they
never charged for the drugs for whatever reason?
The drugs were never solidified. Yeah, at least
criminally. So yeah, so Bill was the one that
that ended up indicting Craig on seven charges
of smuggling and Lacey act, I believe and Lo
and behold while we were doing all of this Craig
was arrested by the state and by California Department
of Fish and Wildlife. Yes, I believe so For for
their case. Yes. Oh crazy. So Craig was in jail
which gave us a little bit of extra time to,
you know, dot our I's and cross our T's with
our investigation and that illegal immigration
case. And Bill ended up charging Craig on that
one as well. Oh, yeah. On the, on the what one?
The 50, the 50 people that were the 50 load.
Awesome. So you yeah, you got a you went to grand
jury federal grand jury and got a seven count
indictment on him for for the Clarion angelfish
and the people Yes, through you know, we were
so lucky in our careers because the whole time
we were agents the United States Attorney's Office
So to listeners understand you always hear about
the US Department of Justice, right? And there
are usdoj as you know Aaron prosecutors in Washington
DC and there is an environmental crimes section
there at DOJ in Washington DC. But around the
country, there are individual United States attorneys
who have districts. And they're part of DOJ,
but they're really responsible for their districts.
And in Los Angeles, there's the US Attorney's
Office for the Central District of California.
And our whole careers, they always had their
own independent. Environmental crimes section
and that's not true for most US Attorney's offices
around the country There's a few that have dedicated
environmental crimes prosecutors, but not many,
right? So we were lucky because we could go to
directly go our own we didn't have to compete
with the FBI or HSI or ATF or US Marshals for
attention with the US attorney we could go directly
to the We had our own we had our own. Yeah. Yeah,
and Bill Carter was one of my favorites too in
part because used to love it when you'd go into
Bill Carter's office and you'd brief him about
a case and the first things he'd say were like
Sounds good. Let's arrest him. I loved it when
he would say that because sometimes US attorneys
as you know are kind of reluctant to make You
know probable cause arrests or file a complaint
and make an arrest. They usually they want to
charge them and have them You know notified by
mail and brought in I always hated that I like
I like to hook people up and as you and I have
said many times That's one of that first 24 hours
in jail that they do is probably the worst. Yes
Yes, and that's a lesson they can learn right?
That's a good deterrent and bill was always on
board if you had a felony that you brought him
He pretty much was on board with making an arrest
pretty quick. Yeah, he was he was awesome So,
but you didn't have to arrest Craig because he
was already in custody. He was already in custody.
So that made it a little bit easier on us for
sure. And what happened? Did he go to trial or
what? Did he plead guilty? How did it play out?
He pled guilty. Yep. He pled guilty and he was
sentenced to 46 months. Wow. That's a good one.
Which is pretty good for wildlife crime. That's
huge. Yeah. So a little under four years. Yeah,
if we can actually put people in jail for more
than a year based on a wildlife crime. That's
pretty darn good. 46 months is definitely one
of the higher ones ever. That must have been
pretty cool. That was exciting. Yeah. Early in
your career, get that knocked out. Yeah, he had
to pay $60 ,000 penalty as well. That was good.
It was a good, good little case. Yeah, that's
a great case. I love it. And deterrent, right?
Yeah. And you know one of the reasons we're not
mentioning Craig's last name here is because
later after he finished his federal time He actually
did some more state time for some type of murder,
right? Oh, I second call in the sentencing hearing
that he said something as he was pleading with
the judge To give him a lesser sentence. He said,
you know, he was so sorry and that he would never
commit a crime again And then a few years later,
he gets charged with involuntary manslaughter.
That's what it was involuntary manslaughter.
Yeah, for a diving incident off of Catalina Island.
Not good. Not good. Sad. And somewhere in your
case, too, there was some issue involving either
a witness or somebody got beat up right mysteriously
beat up that we don't know who or why or how.
So our informant was going home one evening.
And just out of nowhere, I think it was two guys
just pummeled him. For no reason. For no reason.
Didn't rob him or anything. Didn't rob him. Just
beat him up at his doorstep and left him. Yeah,
it was pretty scary. Suspicious. Yeah. I do remember
when that happened, kind of the whole office
was a little bit on alert over that. Yeah. Because
you don't know who else is going to get targeted,
whether it takes it to a new level for sure.
Yeah. for sure. Yeah, it was it was a little
bit scary because we were we were dealing with
a bad guy, a really bad guy. And you'd meet him
and you would, you know, he was the most charming
person. You would never in a million years think
of all of the terrible stuff that he had done.
Yeah, put on a good show, put on a really good
show. But yeah, I, I don't doubt that he was
responsible for that. Interesting. Well, this
for sure is not you know, the only case you ever
did that was a success or or of interest But
you know, this is this a cool case. This is one
of those things that I remember watching and
thinking You know, holy cow. How am I gonna meet
the high bar that all my colleagues are setting?
You know to get be early in your career and get
a 46 month sentence that's pretty impressive
really really cool and definitely set the tone
for my whole career because as I've said before,
you know Any success I ever had in my 20 years
was only because I was trying to meet the high
bar of all the my colleagues around me you Marie
other agents around the country You know, I'm
always just phenomenally impressed with the amount
of work that you're willing to put in You never
give up, you know federal agents are some of
the most dogged investigators I've ever seen
you know, and it's really true what they say
about federal officers and then special agents
that you know if you're committing a crime, and
one of them is on your tail, you're done. They
will get you. Yeah, there's no question about
it. Right. But it's not easy. It's not easy.
And I think that's why, you know, you know, special
agents really are recruited from a broad variety
of backgrounds. You know, I was talking to Keith
Swindle about this in an episode. And, you know,
we have biologists, we have lawyers, we have
former police officers, former game wardens.
All kinds of people former wildlife inspectors,
you know, what you major in in college Administration
of justice. Yeah, so the criminal justice type
background, right? But we have biologists We
have people all types of different backgrounds
and they all come to this career because they
want to do this job and they care Boy, when you
turn somebody like that loose who's well educated
as a diverse background Well trained at the Federal
Law Enforcement Training Center If you're a crook
Watch out. That's exactly right. That's exactly
right. The last thing I want to talk to you about
is this really cool thing. I don't know if you
would consider it kind of like the, you know,
your Keystone accomplishment or not, but for
years and years and years when we were agents,
it wasn't just me and you. Marie talked about
it. Other agents talked about it. We have this
unique situation among law enforcement agencies
or officers that A lot of times the wildlife
or the illegal item that we seize, clarion angelfish
is an example. It's alive, right? Our evidence
is often alive. And that creates huge challenges
for us. You know, I know this happened to you
too. I remember one time arresting somebody at
LAX for smuggling live parrots. She had two of
them strapped to her body. I rested her probably
around 10, 30, 11 at night. So my first obligation
is to take her to the jail, right? And then after
that, I now have to get this evidence taken care
of. But this evidence breathes, needs water,
needs proper housing, you know, it needs to be
evaluated to see if it's been injured, all those
things. And now we're talking about by the time
she's booked into jail, I'm back at the office
at 1230 at night. trying to figure out how to
care for two parrots. Yeah, I don't know anything
about that. And not to mention the disease factor
disease fact you have to take into account as
well, especially with birds, especially with
birds and more so now back then. That was 2011.
For me, bird flu wasn't an issue. But now if
you seize a live bird off of somebody, you know,
there's other times when we arrested people for
smuggling birds coming in from Vietnam where
we put on the full Tyvek suit and respirators
before we search that person. Yeah, and monkeys,
primates. Only one thing worse than a bird smuggling
call, and that's a primate smuggling call. Yep,
I agree 100%. Although I'm not a reptile fan,
so I would put reptiles up there. I would rather
handle a bird and get bitten by a bird any day
than get bitten by a reptile. And the reptiles
can be poisonous. So this is an issue and it's
something we always talked about is we have in
Denver, the Fish and Wildlife Service has a huge
facility known as the Wildlife Repository, but
it's all items. It's dead animals and the repositories
where we send items we seize and it's stored
there and used either for future investigations
or it's destroyed or it's kept for educational
purposes. But they're easy, super easy. Yeah.
Yep. You seize something is to seize a tiger
pelt. And you basically could just like sign
some paperwork and you FedEx it off to the wildlife
repository in Denver. And you're good for your
case. Yeah. But with live wildlife, little different.
Yeah, little different. Not only are you taking
care of your prisoner and dealing with all the
legal requirements for getting them before a
judge, but you're trying to find a place that
can properly care for these exotic animals you
just seized it. hugely challenging. We've always
bitched about it as agents, inspectors to been
like, how come the service does not have a system
for dealing with live confiscated animals? It's
always just kind of good luck, agent, who do
you know? What numbers do you have in your phone?
Do you know anybody at the LA Zoo? Great column,
right? And so and not to mention the fact that
you know, that's your evidence and that's your
evidence. Yep. So you have to make sure it's
all tracked properly and exactly chain of custody.
means solid and and you can't put it in an evidence
room or an evidence cage because it's alive.
It has to be cared for often by people who are
very highly trained in caring for that particular
animal. So yeah, it's got to be a zoo. You can't
just give it to your next door neighbor and say
take care of this bird for me for the next six
months. Right. So you are the only person who
just decided I'm going to tackle this problem.
And when you were the resident agent in charge,
and I know you're humble, so you're gonna try
to give credit to lots of other people, and that's
a bunch of baloney. While you were the resident
agent in charge in Southern California, you were
like, we gotta solve this problem. And you kind
of pioneered this concept of developing a, what
is this, the live wildlife confiscation network.
Is that the right word for it? and you put together
all the right stakeholders and you got them all
in the right room, most of them, ACA accredited
zoos and other organizations that are accredited
for taking care of animals. Tell us about that
process. Like how did this idea come to you and
how did the whole Wildlife Confiscation Network
get started? Because it is a thing now it exists.
Yeah, yeah, it is pretty cool. It's very cool.
Yeah. We worked me and another gentleman at the
San Diego Zoo were the ones that spearheaded
this honestly. And we got in one room, we got
the space down at the zoo. And we got everyone
together in this one room. And it was pretty
amazing. And it was it was zoos. It was nonprofit
organizations. It was sanctuaries. It was anyone
that had a finger in live wildlife and You know,
sometimes these people Disagree with each other
in the way that they care for wildlife or what
they do with it or where they take it and so
I I was a little bit scared, you know getting
all these people in one room Because I thought
you know Fights were gonna break out, you know,
not his fights, but you know, I thought there
was gonna be some big disagreements and Quite
the contrary it was It was really amazing how
everybody there put aside their differences and
Knew that law enforcement had a problem placing
these wildlife live wildlife evidence Specimens
if you will And we came up with a plan to help
agents and inspectors when they seized live animals.
That's very cool. Yeah. And it ended up being
kind of adopted by the AZA, right? The Association
of, what is it? Zoos and Aquariums. Zoos and
Aquariums, yeah. And so any AZA affiliated zoo
is really kind of folded into this network, right?
Some of them. If they want to be. Yeah, some
are. Yes, some art. Yeah, but I've heard from,
you know, agents and inspectors around the country,
you know, like in Denver, where, you know, the
Denver Zoo, I think is part of that network now.
And it's just amazing that they it's it's not
who, you know, now it's it's there's a number
there's a there's a mechanism for getting this
done. And the ACA, I think, has even hired a
coordinator for this, right? Yes. Yep. There's
a national coordinator for this. So it's it's
really amazing. I got it kicked off. And then
I retired in 2021. And then so it was just established
first in Southern California. Right. Trial. Yeah.
But then after I retired, it blossomed into a
national program. And you know, it was done by
the time you retired. It was done. It was just
like the logistics of putting it into play and
hiring that coordinator and doing that sort of
thing. Yeah. It's it wouldn't happen without
you, Aaron. You're very humble, but I'm telling
you, it wouldn't have happened without you. It
just wouldn't have. I don't know why, but Fish
and Wildlife Service higher ups were not pushing
it like you were. You knew who to put in the
room. You knew how to work those sometimes conflicts
between different groups or interests. And, you
know, as far as I'm concerned, that's a huge
thing. In 20 years of my career, I never had
that ability. It was all just who I knew at the
zoos, right? So it has a huge benefit forever
on that any agent or wildlife inspector who miraculously
is able to utilize this network to find a home
quickly for a live animal that's an evidence
item. Yeah. You know, they'll never know to thank
you, but they have you to thank for that. It's
awesome. Well, thanks, Ed. Of course. It really
came to light when we seized that live tiger
cub at the border. Interesting. OK. That's when
I was like, whoa. That was like 2015 or 16, I
think, right? I can't remember the year quite
honestly, but it was it was a headache, you know,
trying to find a home for a live tiger cub. It's
that's a big deal. You just don't take those
things to anyone. No, no. And that that's really
it was I mean, I always realized it was a problem
when we see live wildlife, live cobras. Oh, my
gosh. Sometimes in the more common stuff, it's
actually harder to place. Yeah. Yes. True. Ball
pythons and things like that. Very true. And,
you know, of course, we talked about the birds
and the primates and everything. But, you know,
what I wanted to focus on was let the agent,
let the inspector do their work with what they
are supposed to be doing by charging these people.
bringing in this illegal stuff and let's have
a process where the live evidence is maintained.
And if needed, it's it's all there. It's all
there. But the the individual law enforcement
officers not bogged down with dealing with that
care and that placement. Exactly. When they should
be working on the case to charge that person,
right? Yeah. Awesome. Yeah, fantastic. Thanks.
Yeah, really cool. Aaron, I can't tell you how
much I appreciate you coming on to talk to us.
Pushing through your. It's great to have you
on the show. I wouldn't have dead nice podcast
without you being one of my guests and I'm going
to twist your arm and have you back sometime.
But thank you so much for being on and telling
the great story and great job on everything you
did in your career. How many years? 29? 29 29
years of service to the to the people of the
United States. That's thank you. That's impressive.
Yeah. Yeah. Thanks, Ed. All right, Aaron, you're
one of my faves. Oh, same. All right, everybody.
Thank you for joining us. I'm Ed Newcomer. This
is Nature's Secret Service. We'll see you next
time. Nature's Secret Service is written and
produced by me, Ed Newcomer, and is co produced
by the DHTV team here at California State University
Dominguez Hills. Follow us on social media and
connect with us online at naturessecretservice
.com.