If you'd like to learn more about the topics
of this episode or any previous episode, visit
the Nature's Secret Service website at naturessecretservice
.com and click on All Episodes. As always, thanks
for listening. Okay people, listen up, here we
go. This is Nature's Secret Service, and I'm
your host, Ed Newcomer. Welcome to the final
episode of Season 1 of Nature's Secret Service.
So far, you've had the opportunity to be in the
room for my conversations with some of the best
federal and state wildlife officers in the business.
Believe me, there's more to come. A few of you
have asked, hey, Ed the Fed, what about your
stories? Well, you're in luck. because the guests
I had scheduled for the season finale had to
cancel at the last minute. However, I recently
appeared on the podcast, Zone 7, to discuss two
of my cases, including one that I've never talked
about publicly before. Cheryl McCollum, the host
of Zone 7, has generously given me permission
to replay that episode here on the Nature's Secret
Service channel. If you're interested in true
crime, I encourage you to tune in subscribe to
Zone 7. Cheryl is a law enforcement forensics
professional who knows her stuff and who has
some great guests on her show. Look for Zone
7 on iHeartRadio or wherever you get your podcasts.
Nature's Secret Service will be back for season
2 with more episodes and more great guests. In
the meantime, enjoy your summer, binge our first
season again, and watch for bonus episode shorts
we'll be releasing during the break. If you haven't
done so already, please go to the Nature's Secret
Service website, scroll to the bottom of the
main page, and get signed up as a subscriber.
By doing so, you'll get email reminders about
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and we won't clog your inbox with spam. Our emails
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.com, so make sure you enter that into your address
book so our emails don't end up in your spam
folder. Thanks for being one of my listeners.
I'm really glad you're enjoying these stories
as much as I am. Now, here's my May 21 appearance
on Zone 7 with Cheryl McCollum. such a unique
and just incredible guest. I am certain that
y 'all have no understanding of what his job
was, so we're gonna get right to it. Tonight,
we have special agent with the US Fish and Wildlife
Service. He served for over 20 years. Ed Newcomer
worked in Los Angeles. He did a... variety of
international posts. He retired in 2022, but
y 'all during his career, he conducted some high
profile international wildlife trafficking investigations.
These investigations involved every continent.
He even went to Antarctica. Hey everyone, Ed
here cutting in with a quick correction. I never
personally traveled to Antarctica. If you read
my bio on the web, You'll see that it says that
I worked on wildlife trafficking cases during
my career involving every continent, including
Antarctica. Cheryl misunderstood that that meant
that I'd actually traveled there. Actually, I
conducted an investigation that involved the
illegal sale of whale meat here in Los Angeles,
and it turned out that whale meat had come from
whales harvested from Antarctica. That will be
part of a future episode because it's connected
in with that television show, Whale Wars. All
right, quick correction back to the show. Thanks.
He has a record of six law enforcement awards
from the U .S. Attorney General's Office of Los
Angeles. You can see him talk about his work
on several documentaries, including Prime's Bug
Out, A &E Undercover, Caught on Tape, and Animal
Planet's Animal Black Ops. Ed currently serves
as the International Law Enforcement Advisor.
for the Wildlife Investigators Training Alliance.
Ed is also the host of a hit crime podcast focusing
on wildlife crime called Nature's Secret Service.
Ed Newcomer, welcome to Zone 7. Mac, thank you
so much for having me. I am a huge fan of you
and your show. I'm just so honored to be here,
and that was a very generous introduction. So
thank you very much. Well, you are mighty welcome,
but you know, we both know I left a lot out.
You've gotten a lot of awards. You served as
an ambassador to animals. You are somebody that
law enforcement, prosecutors, the public all
just respect, and we appreciate the work you
have done. Well, thank you. You know what? I
got to say, I had a blast. I had the greatest
job on the planet, and I loved it. And honestly,
I think all the success that I had in my career
can be chalked up to just trying to keep up with
my colleagues and meet the high bar that they
were all setting around me. Amen. Well, you know,
you and I have been able to talk on the phone
and one evening we were talking and we were talking
about undercover work and the danger and special
ops and all that. When I hung up, my husband
said, who was that? What kind of special ops?
And I was like, man, he was doing some undercover
work on bugs. And Walt was like, is that code
for something? I said, no, I literally mean bugs.
And it's something that people, I don't think,
really understand. And one of the conversations
you and I talked about was a theft that was done
at a bug emporium, a museum in Philly, and it
was like nobody really knew about it. Nobody
was really talking about it. But when I started
researching it, because I wanted to do an article
for Crime Online, I'm like, there are these bugs,
like, that are so rare. that somebody had to
have had inside information to know they were
at this museum. And there were things like the
eight -eyed spider. And you and I just talked
about, you know, your average police officer,
if they were to pull somebody over with his and
cockroaches, they don't want to fool with them.
They're just going to say, have a good day. Be
on your way. I don't think it would dawn on them
that these creatures could be being trafficked
or harmed in some way or being sold on the black
market. Yeah, exactly. And I think that a lot
of people, when they hear about it, if they do
hear about it, they assume that it's like maybe
a hobbyist that's gone rogue or an animal lover
who just got a little carried away. But in reality,
these animals can be worth a lot of money, including
insects, fish, reptiles, mammals. And so the
people that are involved in criminal activity
related to animals They are just criminals. They're
in it for the money. And there's a lot of money
to be had if you know what you're doing. That's
right. How did you get into this business? Like,
what drove you to look at the US Fish and Wildlife
Service? Yeah, it was actually really kind of
a lucky happenstance, honestly. I, you know,
from time I was a kid I wanted to be in law enforcement
I was always interested in that type of career
or you know public service in particular related
to kind of doing the right thing and you know
for a long time as a really young kid I thought
I'll be a police officer someday and then I don't
know at some point in my life I realized there
was such a thing as a game warden and I thought
oh police for wildlife that sounds kind of cool
because I always I grew up in Denver and near
the Rockies and my family always instilled a
very high appreciation for the natural world
and wildlife, you know, among all of us. And
then really I went to college at the University
of Colorado and I was majoring in political science
thinking I was going to go on to law school.
And, you know, that would give me a lot of opportunities
to pursue a lot of different, you know, public
service law and law enforcement oriented careers.
And I just made a shortcut through the biology
building to get to my classroom that I needed
to go to. And I just happened to look at the
bulletin board and I saw there was a job announcement
for special agent for US Fish and Wildlife Service.
And it kind of stopped me in my tracks. And I
read about it. And I was like, I didn't even
know this position existed. But as I read about
it, I thought, shoot, these guys and gals are
the FBI agents for wildlife crime. And that is
exactly what I want to do. And so I went on and
went to law school. But as soon as they had their
first opening for special agents after I graduated
from law school, I put my application in for
sure. I didn't get hired right away because most
people don't. But I kept at it. And I accidentally
practiced law for 10 years because it took me
about 10 years to get the attention of the Fish
and Wildlife Service, get that interview, and
get in. Wow. What a perfect parent. I mean, you
already love nature. You already love being outdoors
and now you've got this solid decade of, you
know, legal training. I mean, what a gift you
were to them. Well, it, uh, I didn't realize
what a benefit it would be to have been, uh,
you know, trained as a lawyer, but also most
of my career as a lawyer during that 10 years
was as a prosecutor. And so, you know, I understood
what prosecutors needed. uh, when they, when
they were preparing a criminal case for trial.
So it really, it made it easy for me to, as I
was conducting investigations as a federal agent,
it made me easy. It made it easy for me to kind
of look ahead and say, okay, I know what questions
the prosecutor is going to ask me when I bring
this case to them. And I know what they're going
to want, uh, if we're going to go to trial and,
and when. I've already said it, but you have
worked some of the most notable cases with the
U .S. Fish and Wildlife Service, but you started
off with an unexpected bang, didn't you? You
know, I did, and it wasn't the one I wanted,
and it wasn't the one I expected, because, you
know, honestly, when you become a special agent
for the Fish and Wildlife Service, there's, you
know... 25 plus federal wildlife laws that we
enforce. Plus, we can enforce the entire Title
18 criminal code. But you're thinking, come on.
You're a federal agent. You know you're going
to be working on international wildlife trafficking,
especially because right out of the Academy,
I was sent to Los Angeles. And Los Angeles, New
York, Miami are the huge field offices that handle
most of the international trafficking cases.
So you're, you go there and you think, Oh boy,
I'm gonna, I can't wait for my first case involving
a tiger. Right. Uh, but no, really the first,
uh, the first big case I was assigned to my,
on my own was involved. It kind of notorious
insect trafficker. And I kind of was like, Oh
my gosh, I don't want this bug case, you know?
Uh, but as I kind of dug into it, what, basically
the way it started is we got a tip. from another
agent in our, uh, in the field office in Texas,
he had received information from a possible informant
that this wanted kind of notorious insect trafficker
was going to be at this huge event in Los Angeles
called the insect fair or the bug fair. And so
my boss was like, Hey, Ed, you know, you're new.
Why don't you go down to the bug fair, manage
this informant. He's going to try to make some
contact with this guy. And the more I looked
into it, I realized, you know, I found some old
case reports from a previous agent who had retired,
who had looked at this subject. And this guy
was a bad dude. He was going into national parks
all over the country. Um, basically poaching
butterflies in particular, but Beatles as well
from our national parks, packaging them up and
shipping them overseas where he would sell them
for huge profits. And so, you know, I'm looking
at the case reports and I see that this other
agent had spent a lot of, you know, legwork and
time trying to get this guy. And by the way,
the guy's name is Yoshi Kojima. He's a Japanese
national and this other agent just, you know,
was so close. He was always just like, uh, you
know, a hair's breadth away from, from catching
Yoshi. Um, but he just couldn't get him and ultimately
agent, a guy, a great agent named John Mendoza.
Unfortunately, his supervisory chain of command
told him, Hey, you got to close this case. We're
spending too much time on it. It's a bug case.
There's nothing to it. We're not. And he very,
you know, reluctantly closed his case down. And
then a few years later, boom, we get this tip
that Kojima is kind of back in business. He's
back in the States. He's, uh, he's going to be
at this huge insect fair. And that I thought,
okay, I'll go. check it out and the thing freaking
exploded right on my lap yeah and i'll tell you
it's a hard sale to get people to maybe be sympathetic
to the dung beetle but but you know butterflies
everybody i think sees the beauty and you know
just how magnificent they are when they morph
and so that's the story i even children i think
would resonate that this person is gonna poach
these animals and whether they stay alive or
not is he's going to sell them right and and
you know what that's a that's a great perspective
because i that was my perspective coming into
it probably like yours and many of your listeners
our experience with butterflies is as kids running
around with nets catching you know swallowtails
or whatever and letting them go, or maybe we
had a little butterfly collection as kids. I
didn't, but you know, a lot of kids did. And
I never, you know, you don't think of insects
as something that might be endangered or in need
of protection because they're just everywhere.
Normally, normally you're shooing them away more
than anything else. But as I got into this case,
I realized that There are a lot of insects around
the world that are critically endangered, listed
as threatened or endangered under the U .S. Endangered
Species Act, protected by international treaty
known as CITES, which is the Convention on International
Trade in Endangered Species. And as I thought
about it, I thought, you know, if an insect is
endangered, almost extinct, what do you think's
happening with the other animals in that ecosystem,
right? So I'm telling you if a birdwing butterfly
in Indonesia is struggling to maintain its you
know Species I guarantee you the tigers that
live in that jungle are having a problem the
rhinos that are in that jungle are having a problem
every animal They're all connected. Yeah for
sure. No doubt Yeah, so it'll start with the
frogs and lizards and then it'll move to whatever
eats them and whatever eats them and yeah, that's
what happens Yeah. And you know, there's another
aspect to this case you're working, though. When
you're looking at this thing internationally,
and you're seeing how he goes to these different
continents, and he gets these different butterflies,
and the way he sells them, this web of criminality
that he has has got to be a little shocking to
you. Yes. Uh, and that was very shocking as I
got to know. So the way this rolled out was the
plan was we had an informant that was going to
go to the bug fair and make some contacts with
Kojima and just kind of get a feel for what he
was up to. And maybe we'd get lucky and he did
meant to making doing something illegal. And
my job was really just to manage the informant,
help him operate his undercover equipment, his
recording equipment, and, you know, make sure
he was safe, you know, We didn't think Yoshi
Kojima was dangerous and this was at a public
event. So nothing was going to happen, but nonetheless,
you have an agent there and this poor guy during
the whole day, Yoshi just really wouldn't talk
to him. Anyway, so at the end of the day, I kind
of got frustrated and I thought, wow, what the
hell? I'm just going to walk up and talk to Yoshi
Kojima myself. Cause I was there playing close.
He didn't know who I was. So I. You know played
myself off as a novice asked him a lot of questions
about what he was selling which of course were
all legal but as I and that and that Kickstarted
this relationship that I built in an undercover
capacity with Kojima that lasted about three
years and took me three years to make a case
against him because as I learned he was extremely
paranoid he He had a heavy Japanese accent. So
he he had trouble pronouncing fish and wildlife
So he he would often tell me I mean, he, he had
no idea I worked for fish and wildlife, but he
would often tell me that I had to watch out and
be careful because the fish and wild guys were
out there. And he always called us the fish and
wild guys. And he, he had known that John Mendoza
was after him years before. Then he bragged about
how he outsmarted special agent John Mendoza
with the fish and wild guys. And that, that really
annoyed me and it put you know put the emphasis
in I guess the fire under me to make sure that
I didn't allow somebody to think that they pulled
one over on the Fish and Wildcats. After three
years you finally got a break somebody called
in a tip tell us who the person was if you know
they called in talking about a Ted Nelson. Well,
I got to be honest with you. This was not a break.
This was actually the second time that I thought
I had completely driven this case right into
the ground. You know, I was a new agent and all
around me, all my fellow agents were basically
killing it. They were making case after case
and here I am. I got this big opportunity and
Yoshi Kojima was a difficult person to work undercover.
He, I always described him as like a junior high
school boyfriend or girlfriend. If you didn't,
if you were not available when he called or he
wanted your attention, um, he would stop talking
to me for weeks at a time. And it was, it was
frustrating. And yeah, there were a couple of
times there where he just would kind of cut me
off and I'd think, Oh boy, this case is over.
And the, so let me back up a little bit before
I get to this tip. You mentioned ultimately after
that, I introduced myself to him at that bug
fair. He took a liking to me. and he actually
at the end of the day he gave me a gift of some
really you know worthless dried butterflies and
to be clear for your listeners these are not
live butterflies he they're captured out in the
wild usually what they do is they capture the
caterpillars they bring the caterpillars in just
like you would as a kid you put them in aquariums
or tanks and they let them cocoon as soon as
they hatch they kill them because now their wings
are in perfect condition and then they're mounted
they're pinned in a box Kind of like what you'd
see at a museum and that's how they're valuable.
They're sold pinned and So he gave me a box of
pins dried butterflies that weren't valuable
just as a gift and this kind of sparked off this
three -year relationship where ultimately He
started to invite me to go to lunch dinner go
out for coffee and he very carefully groomed
me to become a business partner with him and
His idea was he would send his plan was he was
gonna send me butterflies from japan that i would
then facilitate selling online to various collectors
and it was real clear all of us in the office
we knew okay well kojima's and by the way my
undercover name was ted nelson and it was it
was clear to us okay kojima's setting me up to
take the fall he's going to set up this business
and if any fish and wild guys come calling He'll
feed them Ted Nelson, and he'll walk away and
slink off in the background. So we knew that
was happening, but it didn't really matter because
our hope was, OK, he's going to send us some
protected butterflies and hope that Ted Nelson
can sell them. But he wasn't. He wouldn't send
me anything. So between all this junior high
school behavior of not talking to me for weeks
and not sending me anything but promising to,
I decided being a young, you know, new. Creative
thinking agent. I said I'm gonna lure this guy
back by creating my own I'm gonna start selling
what looks I'm gonna create a situation that
looks like I'm selling Butterflies on eBay. I'm
not really gonna sell them. I'm just gonna create
a fake eBay account and So the idea of course
as you can imagine is he will call me and say
hey Ted Where you getting these I can supply
you with better material for less money. Well
smart I thought but what happened was he started
to see me as a competitor and he started to get
mad at me and I tried to reassure him I was like
hey you know you just weren't sending anything
and so I had to find somebody else and I'd rather
work with you but he wasn't having it and he
was getting more and more angry and I was getting
more and more panicked that the relationship
was crashing and burning and this culminated
in this tip you mentioned now we come back to
this tip One day I get a phone call from a California
State Game Warden who monitors their tip line.
California State Fish and Wildlife which is the
state agency that you know does enforce the state
wildlife laws. They have a tip line that you
can call that's 1 -800 -NUMBER and one day this
Game Warden checks and there's this heavy Japanese
accented caller who is reporting Ted Nelson for
illegally selling butterflies on eBay. And so
I asked him to send me the tape and we all listened
to it at my office and everybody, all the agents
in the office were like, Oh boy, and you're,
you're never going to get Kojima now because
now that he's turned you in, if you stay in the
business, uh, he's going to assume that you have
been flipped as an informant. He's never going
to trust you. So I thought, Oh, okay. Well, case
is over. I screwed this case up and like, I kind
of ignored it for a while and that was this big
tip that came in. It didn't help us at all. It
actually really hurt us because here our bad
guy is turning in the undercover agents. Yeah,
that is wicked. Yeah, it wasn't good um and you
know I had learned during this time this is probably
two years in I had learned that Kojima had this
massive network of people around the world who
he paid to collect uh insects mostly butterflies
but also some beetles all over the world he he'd
take advantage of local people he basically recruit
them to collect stuff they had no idea what they
were collecting they didn't know it was worth
you know they had a butterfly that was worth
ten thousand dollars they just knew they were
going to get paid a hundred dollars from Kojima
for collecting it and as a result of this huge
network he could pretty much get any any insect
you wanted. So if you were interested in the
one of the most endangered butterflies in the
world let's say the you know the Ornithoptera
alexandria which is one of the biggest butterfly
in the world it's about 12 inches across wingspan
and entirely endangered he could get it and you
know universities and museums can't even get
those specimens for their you know scientific
collections. So I realized this guy was an important
player and here I screwed the case up. So much,
so much for that great introduction you just
gave me, right? Here's this great agent that
basically screwed up this case. Anyway, Ed, thanks
for coming. Best things is on seven. One of your
best episodes ever. But here's the thing, and
this is what I want, you know, young investigators
listening to this show to think about. Change
the word butterfly to heroin. It could still
take you three years with a heavy hitter. You
could think you've ruined it multiple times.
Stay in the game. Keep playing because it's going
to possibly work out. And if not, you're still
going to learn something you can use on the next
case. So keep telling us what happened now. Everybody
thinks, oh, well, Ed, that's over. You know,
that is actually a very good kind of teaching
moment, right? You're absolutely right. And it
is a good lesson for young investigators because
I certainly had this feeling of being a little
depressed that this case was over. I was a little
worried that I had, you know, been burned or
whatever. And I think a lot of new agents in
particular, the first time they do undercover
work, they think they're at every moment, they
think they're burned and the people know that
they're cops. So what I did. my boss actually
suggested she said why don't you close this case
and I kind of said no I kind of begged her to
let me keep it open so I wasn't I didn't really
work on the Kojima case for a few months but
I kind of just kept it on the corner of my desk
and I started to work on other things honestly
I picked up other cases I started to work on
another pretty detailed undercover case and lo
and behold Out of nowhere, you know Kojima kind
of disappeared from the US after that. He wasn't
coming to the bug fair anymore He was still dealing
we knew that but you know, nobody was really
seeing him and Lo and behold, I you know in about
a year and a half later, maybe a year later I
get a just a random phone call from somebody
in the insect business a legitimate dealer Who
says hey, I heard a rumor that Kojima is coming
back to the insect fair in May which was May
2006 and I said to my boss I said you know what
I'm gonna give this one more shot and I cooked
up this plan where I would go to the fair I'd
find him and then I'd just hope for the best
and try to manufacture an accidental encounter
with the guy and see what happened I had a plan
for what would what I would say and how things
would go because you know he knows he turned
me in he's got to be wondering if I know he turned
me in So I found him. I went to the fair that
year and I found him. It was pretty easy. His
unique character, Yoshiko Tsubo, was a funny
guy. He was in his mid -50s then. He always wore
cargo shorts, a Hawaiian shirt, and a fanny pack
that was adjusted to the front. And he kind of
had thinning hair that he didn't comb very often.
And the funny thing is in that fanny pack, if
any crook in LA had known... this little Japanese
man was walking around with ten thousand dollars
cash in his fanny pack. A hundred percent! I
can't believe the guy never got robbed in LA
but he carried a lot of cash in his fanny pack.
So I saw him and I knew that there were two main
halls in the museum where they were displaying
all these insects that were being sold and these
insect fairs are really crazy to go to if anybody
ever has a chance to visit one. They're open
to the public and there's a lot of just regular
you know, James and Joe's in there with their
kids looking at insects that are very common,
maybe sold for a dollar or two to be penned in
a collection, but then there are also these heavy
duty collectors and they're in there looking
for the insects that are being, you know, sold
for five, six hundred thousand dollars a piece
for, you know, collections. So Kojima kind of
moved in those circles, but I knew that he was
going to have to move from one of the exhibit
halls to the other through a pretty narrow walkway
so I just kind of hung out in there until I saw
him coming and then I made it look like I was
walking the other direction and sure enough he
saw me I saw him I feigned surprise he looked
genuinely surprised and he looked nervous he
looked scared like he was afraid of me for some
reason uh probably probably because he thought
I knew he had turned me in yeah maybe somebody
paid you a visit Yeah, exactly. So, uh, I made
the initial approach and I kind of open arms,
big smile on my face, you know, acted so happy
to see him. And one of the very first things
I said to him, which was something I had planned
out pretty carefully was I thanked him and I
said, I owe you a huge debt. And he kind of,
you know, looked at me in a puzzled way and I
said, look, some a -hole turned me in to the
fish and wild guys. these agents showed up at
my house and they tried to search my place but
thank you for the advice you gave me years ago
they didn't find a damn thing they couldn't make
a case against me and thanks to you Yoshi I'm
not in jail and well I'll tell you what he fell
for it hook line and sinker he loved it he loved
that he because he always valued that role as
the mentor right and he he loved it and the first
thing he said to me was Well, are you still selling?"
And I said, oh yeah, I am. But I have a horrible
supplier. I just made up some. I said, I have
a guy out of Germany who's supplying me. He keeps
sending me butterflies with broken wings and
no antenna. And Yoshi, he bit and he said, let's
have lunch. And he took me to lunch that day
and he outlined his ability to send me whatever
I wanted basically. And that was the turning
point in the case. He now believed that I was
a true criminal because he knew he had turned
me in. He believed my story when I told him that
fish and wild fish and wild guys had come to
see me because that's what that's what happened
to him back when John Mendoza was looking at
him. And now we were pals and he we made a list
right there at the table at this restaurant we
went to of the various butterflies I was interested
in. what he could sell them to me for. And he
said, okay, I'll tell you what, I'm going to
go back to Japan. Uh, this was mid 2000. So Skype
was fairly new as a, as a web communication tool.
He said, let's get on Skype. I can show you what
I've got in Japan and you tell me if you want
it and I'll send it to you. So here, here I walk
away from this, uh, you know, reinvigorated relationship
and Yoshi's telling me he's going to be in his
home in Japan. He's going to show me. protected
butterflies on a camera that I can record and
he's gonna tell me here's how I'm gonna smuggle
it into the United States here's how much you're
gonna pay for it I mean if this happens I make
my case right he gave you every element you need
exactly I mean if this was if this worked this
was going to sink him right this was something
that was really pretty Pretty amazing and we
were all pretty stoked about it at the office
when this unfolded And that's exactly what happened.
He went back to Japan and for the next few months
just about every night because you know, he lived
in Kyoto Japan and So his he was about what 12
hours 10 hours something like that ahead of Los
Angeles So he would want to talk during his daytime
my nighttime. So between like 10 p .m. and 2
a .m. I'd be on a Skype call just about every
night with Kojima and this guy did exactly what
I just outlined. He let me give you an example.
One time he offered to sell me what are known
as Papilio hospiton butterflies which are they're
only found in Corsica and they're very endangered.
They're on the U .S. endangered species list
and he offered to send me two pairs male and
female pairs so I'd get four butterflies and
on a Skype call he in very a very detailed explanation
he explained to me okay it's going to cost you
you know whatever it was two or three thousand
dollars for these and I'm going to smuggle them
in a way I can't even use those words I'm going
to smuggle them in a package along with this
other species that looks a lot like them and
I'm gonna basically declare them as this unprotected
species that's very similar looking and by the
way if you see a female mark on one if a female
mark with the number one next to it that's going
to be a male hospiton it was a complicated uh
smuggling scheme but he outlined it for me on
the skype call which i recorded and then those
butterflies arrived and that was one count of
smuggling that was iron clad against yoshi kojima
and that went on for months during the during
the months that we had these Skype calls, he
offered to sell me butterflies valued at more
than three hundred thousand dollars. Now, of
course, I didn't have that kind of undercover
money to spend. I had about thirty thousand,
which even my bosses didn't want me to spend
that. I ended up spending about eighteen thousand
dollars, but I was very careful what I bought
from him and I bought butterflies that were,
you know, protected from different parts of the
world that would show his scope. and his reach
and the severity of you know what he was doing
and after we made a plan okay after you get this
many and these particular species we're going
to indict him and uh we did that we uh after
about three four months i was able to go to a
grand jury present the case to a us attorney
we took a coup to a grand jury in federal court
and they indicted Kojima on 17 counts of trafficking
in endangered species. You know here's another
crazy side story about this. One time I asked
him just I didn't actually expect him to be able
to supply me with some of the most endangered
stuff. Now one time I asked him I said hey I
do have a customer that's interested in the Ornithoptera
alexandria this big the biggest butterfly in
the world. that museums and universities can't
get and I said do you think you could get one
of those and he said ah it'll take me a couple
of weeks but yeah I can do it sure as heck I
paid him for it and a few weeks later he smuggled
it into the U .S. for me using international
mail and but now of course Cheryl we got a problem
he uh he's in Japan right that's right so we
got an arrest warrant for him we've got a 17
count federal indictment but now we got to get
our hands on him so there's two ways we can do
that we can extradite him which is a very length
long long process very difficult very labor intensive
or we know he comes to the state so in my mind
i thought well if he comes here on his own volition
we can just hook him up when he arrives at the
airport so i thought well there's got to be a
way to get him here and at one way presented
itself very early in this relationship. So at
the beginning, in the first year and a half or
so, Kojima was just, he was friendly with me.
It was a little standoffish. He was very paranoid.
Like he used to sometimes in the middle of a
conversation, he'd be like, so how long have
you been with the fish and wildlife service?
You know, just trying to trip me up at one time
after we met for coffee, he very carefully examined
my vehicle. You know, he's looking in the grill,
looking at the license plate, peering in the
windows. And I was like, Yoshi, what are you
doing? And he saw I'm looking for the, uh, you
know, police lights in the grill of your car,
make sure you, and I'm like, come on, Yoshi.
I don't even know what fish and wildlife is.
And, um, so at the beginning he was paranoid,
but at the end, he was very friendly with me.
And I realized he had, I think Kojima was probably
bisexual and he, he had developed some type of
serious attraction to me. And it might've had
something to do with the fact that I had grown
this huge biker mustache for the other undercover
case. That's what you got. That's right. So he,
it was awkward because he would sometimes make
very suggestive statements to me on these recorded
Skype calls, you know, like wanting me to take
my shirt off and you can't do that. You're an
undercover agent. You cannot, can't take your
shirt off for a suspect. You can't. You just
can't engage in that kind of thing. So I had
to very carefully play it off, you know, without
offending him. Cause remember he's like a junior
high school boyfriend or girlfriend. He might
stop talking to me if I offended. So I kept playing
him off, but at the end, when we had this arrest
warrant, I realized, okay, this is it. I gotta,
I gotta play curious here. And the next time
he started to make suggestive comments to me,
I played it off. Like, you know, you're wearing
me down Yoshi. You're such a great guy. I'm curious.
I'll tell you what, next time you come to LA,
we'll go on a date. And don't you know, 48 hours
later, this guy booked a flight to Los Angeles.
Wow. Yeah, he arrived in LA and it was like straight
out of the movies. He was taken into custody
without incident. We arrested him at the airport
and we had him. Unbelievable. And I want to tell
you something else. Here's another little piece
of advice. And I hope that the young investigators
are listening. because you said something really
important in the beginning. You wanted the tiger
case. You want the polar bear case. You're given
a butterfly case. But you didn't just half work
it and when we're given the opportunity to close
it, took it. You did not. You stayed with that
case and the work that you were able to do. I
mean, that's what legends are made of. That's
why the U .S. attorney keeps giving you awards,
because what you're able to do, I mean, you worked
that thing like it was heroin. Yeah. And honestly,
that was my very first law enforcement award
from the U .S. attorney's office was for the
work I did on the Kojima case. And it did open
my eyes to the importance of all the other species.
You know, yeah, working on a tiger cub smuggling
case is sexy and fun and gets a lot of media
attention. Protecting wolves, grizzly bears is
important and fun. Uh, but you know, there's
a lot of animals and wildlife and nature out
there that has no voice and nobody's sticking
up for it. And, um, yeah, it kind of opened my
eyes to the scope of our job and the importance
of our job and, and, uh, Yeah, you know, I don't
like criminals. I wasn't going to let Yoshiko
Jima get away. And I really didn't like the fact
that he thought he had outsmarted one of our
agents. So that was another thing. That's good
all day. Yeah, the agency pride goes a long way,
right? Amen. That goes a long way. And that's
good for everybody. And one thing, too, I want
to mention, y 'all, when you're talking about
these organized criminals, human trafficking
plays a role, too. So when you're talking about
a butterfly or a tiger or a black bear you can
again exchange that for a five -year -old boy
17 year old girl 36 year old woman They can get
people using the same routes that these smugglers
use Absolutely. Yeah investigation is investigation
and crime is crime This isn't directly what you're
referring to but you know a lot of times once
a smuggler has the systems and the roots in place
They will engage in other types of crimes. You
know, if you can smuggle butterflies into the
U .S., you can also smuggle drugs or you can
smuggle people. That's right. Well, look at pimps.
Pimps are gonna run women. They're gonna run
drugs. They're gonna run guns. Absolutely. It's
an opportunity. And you know, after you had your
butterfly case, you know, you moved right into
the fish smuggling. And here's what's so funny.
I have a buddy that works for Black River Caviar.
and we were having a conversation because she
had somebody sort of famous say to her they prefer
wild caviar and she said well if you've ever
had wild caviar you've had black market caviar
absolutely you know you're not supposed to have
caviar that didn't come from a farm because sturgeon
are endangered many species of them are yeah
some of them critically well tell us about your
fish case Oh my gosh. You know, here I'm still
waiting for my tiger case, right? Right. But
yeah, not long after the Kojima case, I picked
up this interesting fish case. And then this
is going to require a little bit of explanation
about the law. But I think given some of your
points about, you know, maybe some of the lessons
we can all learn from different investigators'
experiences. These fish cases can be really complicated
and very, very lucrative for the people involved.
There's a fish known as the Asian arowana. It's
not the marijuana. It's the arowana. It's an
interesting fish. It's found throughout Asia,
Southeast Asia, Indonesia, South Asia. And it
is a predatory fish that can get pretty big,
maybe like to two and a half feet at when it's
a mature adult they have an upturned mouth which
is really interesting and they're what are called
mouth brewers so when they when their eggs hatch
all of the baby fish will hang around mama because
mama's uh tough you know so be and uh She will
defend her clutch of fish, a baby fish. And if
there's a threat, they all run into her. She'll
open her mouth, and they all swim into her mouth.
And she kind of hides them in her mouth. And
that's what they call mouth breeders is the ones
that they're very interesting fish, but they're
aggressive. They'll protect their territory.
And that becomes important later in this story.
So the way the law is for Asian arowana, under
the US Endangered Species Act, they are listed
as endangered. But under the Convention on International
Trade in Endangered Species, which is the international
treaty regarding the movement of wild animals,
they have dual protection. If they're wild, they're
listed as appendix one, which means they cannot
be traded in the trade. If they're raved in captivity,
they're listed as what's called appendix two,
which means they can be sold internationally
and shipped internationally if they have a CITES
export permit from the country of origin and
most of them most of them come out of Indonesia.
Now the reason this is important is because anytime
you have a scheme like that a legal scheme like
that it creates an opportunity to launder fish.
So all you have to do is catch your wild fish
and make it look like it was raised in captivity
and bing bang boom you get your permit and it
appears to be legal and During this next investigation
I'm going to talk about, I was able to uncover
really the insidious side of the Asian Arowana
trade. There is a lot of laundering of these
fish going on. They're a really cool fish. They're
unusual. And the fact that they're being depleted
from the wild under the guise of having been
captive raised is really like, it's sinister.
It's almost sinister, right? And it really shows.
that the people involved are greedy they're interested
in money they don't care about even their own
environment which to me is just repulsive so
these fish go for about five grand yeah depending
on size now normally to ship them you know and
have them live they're going to have to be fairly
small because to smuggle them you have to have
these now that unlike the butterflies these fish
are only valuable if they're alive and the the
reason they're so valuable is There's many cultures
in the world that believe that Asian arowanas
bring good luck and they come in these crazy
color patterns like there might be one that looks
like a gold bar and then another one will be
like bright red. It's all the same species it's
just like different morphs. So you could have
a small fish that's maybe four or five inches
in length that would sell between fifteen hundred
and five thousand dollars from the initial sale
from the provider. If the fish starts to get
bigger and that's maybe 12 to 20 inches, it could
easily go for $10 ,000 or more. During my investigation
of this Asian Arowana case we're going to talk
about, which I called Operation RTG, there was
a report of one fish being sold for $30 ,000,
just one live fish. As you can imagine, that
kind of money will draw criminal enterprises
right to it. I called this case RTG because one
of the codes that's often used in the criminal
networks for an Asian Arowana is RTG, and that
stands for Red Tail Golden. And it's a particular
morph of Asian Arowana. They also sometimes use
a code name like Dragonfish, or they might use
SR, which stands for Super Red. But the way this
started for me, and I think this is the lesson
for younger or up and coming or people, uh, you
know, investigators or people who want to get
into law enforcement and do investigations, always
pay attention to those, like be available to
talk to the public, pay attention to those phone
calls that come into the office and don't sit
around in the office waiting for your supervisor
to assign a case to you. Um, our saying in Los
Angeles, you know, like I said, we had, we had
hard charging agents in Los Angeles. We were
the one of the busiest field offices in the country.
If, if an agent was waiting for a supervisor
to assign a case to them, our, our view as agents
was, well, that agent is kind of mediocre, right?
They're not working very hard because you shouldn't,
you shouldn't have to wait around for your supervisor
to assign something. If you, if you're networked
in. So that's how this case came to me. I was
kind of obsessed with talking to the public and
taking phone calls from the public. And if somebody
walked in our front door and they wanted to talk
to an agent. I'd sit down and talk to them. And
one of the things that came up for me was I used
to skulk around, for lack of a better word, I
used to snoop around on these various bulletin
boards and chat rooms on websites that attracted
people who were into really exotic fish. And
one of those places is called aquaticpredators
.com. I don't know if they're still around, but
they were in the mid -2000s. So I used to just
routinely, if I had nothing else going on, I
had an undercover email account and I would log
into aquaticpredators .com and I'd just start
snooping around in the bulletin boards and see
what people were talking about. And one day I
come across this posting by a guy named Andre
Ramza and he's just basically making this very
nonchalant inquiry about whether or not anyone
in the U .S. knows how to get RTGs into the US.
And I immediately recognized that RTG was a code
name for Asian Arowana. And my thinking was,
I need to reach out to this guy because I don't
know how many thousands of people are seeing
this post, right? So I'm going to try to intercept
this. I'm going to try to be the guy this guy's
talking to rather than somebody else in the US
who might actually be a smuggler. So I reached
out to him. Um, and I find out basically in a,
in a short while, few, few exchanges that he's
based out of Indonesia, which is one of the places
Asian Arawanas are found. And he tells me he's
got a friend in San Diego and he wants to send
him to Asian Arawanas, but he knows it's illegal
and he's not sure how to do it. So he's passing
it off like he's not selling it. He's just sending
it as a gift to a friend. And I said, now. Interesting,
Cheryl. Some of your listeners might say, hey,
isn't a newcomer about to entrap this guy? They
will. And so maybe it's worthwhile to just give
a two second primer on what entrapment is. And
for your listeners, if they don't know, entrapment
means that law enforcement basically creates
the opportunity and gives the person the idea
to commit the crime. when they wouldn't have
had the idea on their own or the opportunity
on their own. And basically all you need to do
as a law enforcement officer to get past a defense
of entrapment is provide what the law or the
courts refer to as a scintilla of evidence that
they were predisposed. and a scintilla is not
defined in the law but we all know a scintilla
is very little it ain't much it ain't much those
are exact words i was about to use it ain't much
and so you know already this andre ramsa guy
has already presented to me predisposition. He's
told me he wants to send RTGs to the U .S. and
he's having trouble because it's illegal. So
it's already this until it's there, but there's
a few more things I can do to kind of shore that
up as we go along. But basically, I told him,
hey, I'm having the same problem. It's hard to
get things past customs, but I have an idea and
that's all I said. And then I let him make the
next step. And he did. He wanted to know what
my idea was. And I thought, well, I'm going to
see what he's up to. So I basically presented
a scenario to him that I had a friend who worked
for US Customs who could help me get things through
unnoticed. And this is a guy in Indonesia, a
country where I know there's a lot of corruption.
So it would not be unusual for him to believe
that story. I mean, as far as in his world, corruption
is common. So he bit. And he immediately started
talking to me about my plan and how he would
do it. And this quickly morphed into, I actually
made some notes in preparation of our, of our,
uh, you know, recording today. And he, I realized
that my first contact with him was on May 3rd,
between May 6th and May 8th. He started to introduce
me to not just a friend in San Diego, but, uh,
17 customers in the United States. He had kind
of, you know, fostered. who were very interested
in purchasing Asian Arowana fish from him. Yeah.
So this was not a guy who was sending fish as
gifts. This was a guy who was engaged in the
business of selling Asian Arowana. So we knew
we had a case. And what I did was I basically
explained this plan not only to him, but also
to all of his customers because they started
to call my undercover cell phone and ask me.
How are you going to do this? And what I was
very careful to do with every single customer
that called me or potential customer, I said,
hey, I said, you're not a cop, are you? Because
this is illegal, right? And I would basically
get them to tell me what the law was. And every
single person I talked to who was a potential
customer of Andre. was very aware of the Endangered
Species Act, very aware that Asian arowanas were
not legal to import into the United States, even
if captive bred. And they wanted them. And these
guys were talking about paying between $500 and
3 ,000 fish, depending on the size they were
getting. And they wanted reassurance from me
that I could get the fish in illegally without
getting caught. This case really unfolded quickly.
Like I said, by early May, I had been in contact
with 17 people who wanted this to happen. And
by June 22nd, Andre's basically making plans
to send the first two fish as a test, because
he wanted to see if his scheme would work. So
I worked with US Customs and Homeland Security
as well, investigations. Andre sent the shipment.
And by this time, the US Fish and Wildlife Service
has an intelligence unit. And they were able
to decipher that Andre's last name was actually
Gunawan rather than Ramza. So he was using a
fake name. So we identified him as a guy named
Andre Gunawan out of Bogor, Indonesia. And he
decided he was going to send two fish first as
a test. He did. He sent them to Ted Nelson again
was my undercover name. I received those fish
at LAX through Korea Air and took pictures and
emailed back said hey your fish arrived everything's
good. We knew that he wanted to ship more so
we wanted to we didn't want to take the case
down yet so we actually delivered those two fish
to his first two customers. In one instance me
and another agent drove to San Diego and personally
delivered the fish. to a guy named Sam in San
Diego and during that meeting Sam like literally
I think the quote in one of my reports was whew
I'm so glad you're not a federal agent because
I wasn't sure we were going to get these fish
and then he goes on to explain the law to me
and I was like you know the whole thing's recorded
it doesn't get better than that when the bad
guy's telling you what the law is oh that's fantastic
yeah it was fun The other fish we shipped to
a guy in uh and and this guy actually becomes
important later in this story but we shipped
the other fish via FedEx to another guy in Kentucky
and we alerted uh this is the great thing about
being a federal agent US Fish and Wildlife Service
we have agents all over the country right so
I alerted the agents in Kentucky we actually
had agents doing surveillance on the house who
observed the FedEx driver deliver this package
that I had sent. and actually, you know, observed
our suspect in Kentucky received the package
at his front door. So we knew in anticipation
of future search warrants that the fish went
into that house and that suspect, you know, ex
a guy named Lee picked up the fish. The great
news is Ed Andre sends out an email to all these
17 customers. Success. It worked. Our scheme
worked. And this This got us past the hump of
all suspicion. There was a guy with the last
name Ku in Texas who had been warning people,
hey, I think this Ted Nelson guy is a US customs
agent. So he didn't want to order. He was supposed
to order on that first shipment. And he was like,
I'm not doing it because I think Ted's a Fed.
And once the shipment went through, all of a
sudden Tom Ku was his name. He put his orders
in because now he was convinced. uh this was
a legit deal oh yeah well that was kind of a
coup itself exactly a coup right on the bad guys
so uh yeah very quickly after that so now we're
this is into july this is happening by late august
uh andre gunawan makes arrangements to to send
12 more fish to the US. So now we kind of have
a dilemma because these are endangered fish.
We suspect they're coming from the wild. We don't
think they're coming from captive breeding facilities.
And basically, we can't let this go on too long.
We want to catch the people involved. We don't
want to just have two people we catch. We want
to take down Andrea. We want to take down this
customer base. But we can't let you know the
endangered fish trade go on because we are it's
not we are trying to protect these animals so
we decide okay we're going to do this next shipment
and now we're going to take everybody down and
sure enough august end of august rolls around
and the next shipment of 12 i'm sorry 10 fish
comes in and uh we arranged to make a personal
delivery to the people in la and i tell them
All of the customers in LA need to meet me at
the Target parking lot in Carson, California.
And I said, I'm delivering them in person because
I'm afraid I don't want them to die, blah, blah,
blah. So sure enough, all of the people that
lived in the LA area who were customers showed
up at Target. And we had a massive team of Fish
and Wildlife Special Agents and Homeland Security.
special agents stationed around the parking lot.
We had a surveillance van sitting in the middle
of the parking lot watching everybody. And I
met as Ted Nelson at the back of my undercover
vehicle with these customers. I showed them the
vish. Everything's recorded. I had them actually
sign a document saying they'd received it. It
was beautiful. And then the coup de grace was
something I didn't expect. We were all everybody
was so giddy and happy that they were receiving
these valuable endangered fish. We all agreed
to pose for a photograph at the back of my vehicle
together. So I remember later my boss was like,
I saw you posing for the photo and I was like,
what in the hell is he doing? But I can tell
you that exhibit a one. Exactly. And what I really
wanted was I wanted them to be holding their
fish in the bag. and I said I said to him I said
hey why don't you guys hold your fish for the
photo and on on the mic you know I'm recording
everything one of the guys says hell no I'm not
gonna hold an illegal fish while I'm in a photograph
now that was exhibit me just got better it just
got better yeah I met that prosecutor I mean
you want to talk about dancing now I have to
ask one question about the photo sure sure was
your shirt owner off Fully clothed. Fully clothed.
Oh, well, we don't care about that. Move on.
Yeah, yeah. But I did have the fancy big mustache.
That helps. Right on. OK. So this is what we
call a deliver bust in the law enforcement world.
You're familiar with those, Cheryl. When everything's
done, I gave the signal and I walked away and
in come the lights and sirens and the agents
and their tactical gear and everybody got arrested.
Now. The funny thing was we made it look like
I got arrested as well and the thing that really
cracked me up is later that night I was back
at the office everybody had been processed and
I got an email from one of the guys who lived
outside of LA and the word had gotten out there
had been an arrest because he sent me an email
to Ted Nelson. saying he'd reconsidered and he'd
like to cancel his order. And I didn't even answer
the email because I was like, too late. You're
already under indictment, you know? So yeah,
nice try. As a result of this, we indicted. We
didn't get all 17 of the customers that were
originally on the list, but we indicted seven
people and every single one of them was indicted
for a felony and every single one of them. Once
they saw the evidence we had against them between
email correspondence, recorded undercover phone
calls, recorded in -person meetings. I forgot
to mention some of these guys were so paranoid
about me they wanted to meet beforehand. So we
had some in -person meetings in LA where I'd
meet with them with another undercover agent
posing as my girlfriend or whatever. And I'd
reassure them, yeah, I'm a regular guy. And they'd
walk away satisfied. Um, there was no defeating
the evidence that we had in every single one
of those seven people, with the exception of
Gunawan pleaded guilty and they were all sentenced.
They all have felonies on their record. Uh, they
had pretty significant fines. They were, they
weren't sent to jail. They had long probations,
two to three year probation periods. And we never
saw them ever engaged in anything like this ever
again. The fun thing was about this guy, Lee
in Kentucky. One of the things we wanted to do
was we wanted to recover those two fish. We'd
already delivered so we had agents in San Diego
and Kentucky execute search warrants at those
houses and Luckily, we were able to recover those
two fish. They were still at the house but during
that search warrant in Kentucky the agents interviewed
the guy named Lee and Lee acted like he was cooperating
but he lied lied lied he He said he wasn't sure
who the guy was in LA, which would have been
Ted Nelson. He gave a different name for Andre
Gunawan. He basically tried to misdirect our
agents at all, every opportunity, which is another
federal crime. You cannot lie to a federal agent.
You don't have to talk to a federal agent, but
if you'd say, if you do, as Martha Stewart, Marion
Jones, and many others have learned, if you do
talk to a federal agent and you lie, that's a
felony. So. Later that night, after our agents
in Kentucky had conducted a search warrant at
his house and interviewed him, he actually called
me Ted Nelson on my undercover phone and told
me, Hey, Ted, watch out the fish and wildlife
services after you. They were at my house today.
They did a search warrant. They seized the fish.
They're coming for you. Don't worry. I lied and
told them all these stories about different names,
different information. Yeah. and of course that's
all that's all recorded too yeah yeah so the
moral of the story is uh we shut them down we
shut down on and we stopped something that could
have if if an agent hadn't seen that original
post by andre somebody else would have picked
it up somebody else would have helped him do
the smuggling scheme and they would have gotten
away with it and that again is the lesson because
if they can get a fish into this country they
can get a weapon absolutely absolutely and i
think that's another brilliant move when you
bring in homeland security and everybody else
to show them from a chat room this is where we
got to san diego kentucky etc now i do have one
question when you got the fish back where do
they go and that's another important thing when
you're a fish and wildlife special agent Your
evidence is often alive and requires care, feeding,
and you have to find a home for it, right? You
don't want it to get back into the market. It
can't go back to Indonesia because you don't
know where it came from and it can't be reintroduced
or re put back in the wild because it might introduce
a disease. So the good news is we recovered.
We had all 12 fish. They all lived and they were
all transferred to the Pittsburgh zoo, which
of course is an accredited zoo under the Association
of Zoos and Aquariums and they went to the you
know they became an educational exhibit at the
Pittsburgh Zoo so as far as I was concerned as
an agent that's a good result. That's outstanding
and I tell you you know I run the Wildlife CSI
Academy which you and I have talked about and
just the idea that now they are a teaching tool
is to me a tremendous ending. That's one of the
things whenever I donated you know, seized animals
to a facility like that. I always think I couldn't
force them to do it, but I always encourage them
to include some type of educational placard to
let the public know that these animals were recovered
during a coronal wildlife trafficking investigation.
Just so people know, you know, these things are
they're not they're expendable. Right. Absolutely.
Well, Ed Newcomer, I cannot thank you enough
for coming on to Zone 7, for being just a phone
call away if we have a situation with an animal
that we need help with. And your career speaks
for itself. Well, you know what? Thank you for
having me on. And if you don't mind, I'll make
one more plug for my podcast. And in the podcast,
I'm not telling my stories. I'm interviewing
other agents and state wildlife officers who
have similar. really great stories from their
careers. So anybody who's interested in this
kind of true crime, don't feel like you're going
to hear the newcomer story when you tune in to
Nature's Secret Service because you're going
to hear some awesome stories from some awesome
federal and state officers who work on wildlife
crime. Love it. Nature's Secret Service. Y 'all
get to it. The stories you will not believe what
is going on in the wildlife arena. I'm just telling
you, you won't believe it. But Ed, thank you
so much. You're welcome, Cheryl. It's been a
real pleasure. I've enjoyed it, and I hope we
can do it again sometime. I'm going to end Zone
7 the way that I always do, with a quote. And
I want you all to think about Ed's mustache,
because it was the inspiration for this quote.
My dad worked for the Fish and Wildlife Service,
and he worked for the Department of the Interior,
you know, like the federal government. And consequently,
I spent a lot of time outdoors in my life. I
even became the voice of Smokey the Bear, Sam
Elliott. I'm Cheryl McCollum, and this is Zone
7.