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Okay, people, listen up. Here we go. This is
not only Nature's Secret Service, the podcast
that puts you in the room with the men and women
of wildlife law enforcement. It's also your favorite
podcast. I'm Ed Newcomer, your host, and today
our guest is Walter Duran. Walter's a former
U .S. Fish and Wildlife Service Special Agent.
He recently retired, but he has a long history
in wildlife law enforcement. In his law enforcement
career, he worked for the National Park Service
as a park ranger and for the U .S. Park Police
in Washington, D .C. He was also a refuge officer,
wildlife refuge officer for the U .S. Fish and
Wildlife Service, and then later a wildlife officer
when those titles changed. And one of his jobs
while he was a federal wildlife officer is one
of the kind of neatest jobs I think the Fish
and Wildlife Service has had over the years.
And that is he was a manatee officer, which means
that he was in Florida and as a uniformed officer,
his sole duty was really to protect endangered
manatees. Manatees take a real beating from people
who operate boats in Florida waters in manatee
zones at high speeds and don't follow the rules
and they hit manatees and often those manatees
are severely injured and die from their injuries.
So we do have officers that devote nearly 100
% of their time to protecting manatees down there
and enforcing the boating regulations, which
is, I think, a really important job and a really
noble job. Walter eventually became a special
agent with US Fish and Wildlife Service and spent
his time at the Miami field office and did some
really incredible work. Super happy to have him
on the show. Walter, thanks for joining us. Hey,
I'm happy to be here. Thank you for having me
over and talk about this important conversation
we're going to talk about today. Yeah, and we're
gonna talk about migratory birds which as you
know Walter anybody who's listening who works
for US Fish and Wildlife Service or did work
knows that we spend a lot of time on migratory
bird issues Migratory Bird Treaty Act of course
is one of the oldest wildlife laws in the United
States and all of us regardless of where we are
in the country Agents spend some time on migratory
bird issues Walter one of the things you know
I was an agent for 20 years in LA. I worked on
a lot of bird cases. We investigated eagle poaching
cases. I was involved in people who were killing
hawks and falcons. I was involved in investigations
about people smuggling live parrots across the
border, which of course are not migratory birds,
but endangered species. And I was involved in
investigations of people smuggling songbirds
from Southeast Asia into the United States. But
the one thing I never saw a lot of was people
trapping migratory birds that are native to the
United States for commercial purposes. But you
got into a really interesting investigation in
Florida, where you discovered a whole industry
or business or practice of people purposely going
out trapping migratory birds native to the United
States, protected by the MBTA, and commercializing
them. And when I heard about this case, I was
like, I had no idea this was going on in the
United States. And I just was fascinated by it.
And of course, I followed it closely. And I'm
so happy you're here to talk about it. But first
of all, can you just give us some background
about why are people targeting migratory birds
that are native to the United States for live
capture to commercialize? Why are they doing
it? And what are they using these birds for?
So it's mostly a culture thing. with Hispanic
people from Cuba, Mexico, and some Central American
people. But it is to have this birds at home
because of their colorations, their singing abilities,
and for competition. But also it's important
to know that this investigation that we're talking
about, which is Operation Ordinary Birds, started
back in 2012. You know, it runs from 2012 to
2024. Wow. Okay. And there was multiple facets
of faces of it. So it was a very long investigation
targeting the trapping of some birds in the United
States and trafficking of some birds from Cuba
here. And I'm talking about here in the Miami
area, but also included Texas, Wisconsin, California,
Arizona, Nevada, Georgia, and other states in
the union. It's incredible. I didn't know it
went on that long. And like I said, I was surprised
to hear about it. Interestingly, some of those
cases I told you about where there were people
smuggling songbirds in from Southeast Asia into
the U .S. Those were primarily Asians in the
U .S. who were interested in having those birds
alive for singing competitions. And I had never
heard of these singing competitions before in
my life. And honestly, I still don't totally
understand how they work. I didn't know that
U .S. native songbirds were being used for the
same reason, but it's interesting. You mentioned
that most of the targets are in this case are
the people involved were Hispanic, right? Either.
Right. Latin American, Central American. That's
a little different than what I experienced with
the Asian songbirds coming in. But interesting
that it's also for singing competitions. Can
you explain how these singing competitions work?
I don't understand that. And how are they judged?
And is there money involved? Oh, yeah. I mean,
this is most crimes. Well, I shouldn't say most
crimes. All crimes involve money. That's the
driving force. behind it, you know, you did this
for 20 years, I did it for 26 years, right? Yeah.
And what drives people to do this is money. Punishment
versus reward. Right. And so, you know, these
people will get together, you know, 10, 20, 30,
40, 50 people, they'll put all birds in their
cages. And I'm talking about birds singing competitions
in a cage in a circle. and they'll make this
bird sing until two end up just two singing.
The other ones will not sing because they got
tired because just, I don't know why they stopped
singing. And all these people are betting, you
know, let's say an example of $250 per person,
you have 50 people, you have thousands of dollars
in that one singing competition, right? You have
a judge or two that says, hey, This bird is out
because it's not singing loud enough or because
it's not singing enough. Only these two are left
and these two will go to the championship. Think
about the NFL or the Major League Baseball, right?
The World Series. And then they keep singing
until one either doesn't sing anymore or doesn't
sing enough melodies or this bird sings the loudest.
The other thing they do is they can have them
at home so these birds can sing because of their
coloration. A perfect example of those birds
would be the painted bunting, the indigo bunting,
the blue grosbeak and the rose breasted grosbeak.
Here in South Florida. There's other species
that are targeted. depending on the region of
the United States, like on the West Coast, they
target the house finches, the American gold finches,
lazuli buntings, which is specific to the West
Coast. The lesser gold finches also are targeted.
And remember, all of these are federally protected
because they are considered migratory birders.
Right. Right. They're all on the MBTA list. Yeah.
Correct. And then, you know, the simple possession,
talking about reward versus punishment, simple
possession is just a misdemeanor. Right. Where
it gets into higher penalties, which would be
a felony, is for the sale or barter or trade.
Right. That means you sold it or you exchange
it for something to barter or trade, right? Right.
It's a felony. Right. Yeah, that's a good point
because most of the time when we deal with MBTA
issues, Migratory Bird Treaty Act, yeah, the
basic fine or penalty for catching one is a class
B misdemeanor. I think it's maximum six months
in jail and what, a $15 ,000 fine, I think. But
yeah, if you get into offering them for sale
or selling them, it's a class D felony. So you
go to jail for, I think, maximum two years. So
pretty serious offense. really interesting that
they're targeting these species. How do they
catch them? What are they using to catch these
birds? They use several methods, you know, in
trapping these birds and also depends on who's
doing the trapping or catching, what region of
the country is doing it. But, you know, they
use mess nets, glue sticks, traps. Sometimes
they even will have a bait bird Right? That they
will have at the house singing, they'll open
their patio door and the bird will come in and
they'll trap it too. It's very rare because remember
the bird is looking for that mate, right? Right.
That is singing or is looking for another friend
that is singing somewhere and is trying to figure
out, looking for food and stuff like that. So
it's very rare, but it does happen. Interesting.
And just so my listeners understand if they're
not familiar with some of these trapping devices,
even though it's illegal to catch or trap migratory
birds, there are lots, there are birds that are
legal to trap, you know, like pigeons and things
like that. And then of course there are commercial
traps available because there are scientists
and people who are authorized to catch migratory
birds alive for study purposes. So like miss
nets is as common. tool used by researchers.
And it's basically a very thin, finely woven
net, kind of like a fishing net, but it's hung
up between trees, birds can't see it. And it's
hung in areas, birds are likely to fly and birds
will fly into it and get tangled up. And then
they can usually doesn't hurt them. They almost
always doesn't hurt them and they can be removed
and studied and then released or if they're used
for illegal purposes, obviously keep the bird.
There's also like stationary boxes that are traps
where a bird might go for food and drop through
a trap door and get caught. You mentioned glue
sticks. That one's surprising to me because the
way glue sticks work, they can be used for rodents
or birds. But basically it's a piece of flat
cardboard with some very, very strong adhesive
glue on it. Can be mounted horizontally or vertically.
Um, but once an animal touches it, they're stuck.
And then the more they struggle, the more stuck
they are. And man, I've seen birds stuck on glue
traps and it's, it's usually really harms the
bird trying to get them off. I'm surprised they
use glue traps. Um, cause I would think they
would hurt the bird or at least tear the feathers
off when they take it off. Right. Yeah. It costs
a lot of damages on the feather. It causes a
lot of damage to the birds, stresses the bird,
but also leaves it open to predators. Lack of
food, lack of water, depending if the trapper
doesn't come, he might place the glue stick in
the morning, he doesn't come until six in the
evening to pick it up. Because the birds will
start flying around that time. So they will come
over and see if they got... a bird in the glue
stick or the trap or the mess net. Yeah. But
from what I've seen, glue sticks are the most
devastating ones because they take the feathers
off when you're trying to remove the bird from
the glue stick. It's just not good for the bird
per se. I would say it's cruelty. Yeah. Yeah.
Plus, like you mentioned, if you're not monitoring
your traps pretty regularly, your birds are going
to be just they're just vulnerable to predatory
attack or they might die from dehydration or
stress or overheating, whatever. Yeah. The other
thing is like you have the straps with the false
doors that they, you know, they land there and
they drop into this compartment and door closes.
Right. Oftentimes we'll find snakes that they
were eating this bird. So you find a snake there
and snake has a little bird in their belly, you
know, that ate the birds. I didn't even think
about that. It'd be easy for a snake to get through
that trap door. That happens more often than
you would think. Especially in Florida, right?
Yeah. Where there's a lot of reptiles. Yeah,
interesting. We're talking about migratory birds,
and migratory bird populations have been generally
declining over the last 50 years for a lot of
reasons, but certainly this kind of pressure
can't help. Why is this such a conservation concern
for particularly migratory birds, this activity?
Can you explain that a little? Well, because
it targets a specific species, right? Yeah. You
know, like the rose -breasted grosbeak. And in
the Cuban culture, the color de Escollado, right?
Because it has this little like blood right here
or rose color. And so the color de Escollado.
The population on this keeps declining by year.
Studies done by the Audubon Society, it's just
not good for those birds because they target
the males. In order for this population to flourish,
one, we're cutting their habitat. Two, all the
buildings that are going up, so they crash against
this. those but also all the high big numbers
sometimes you have people that have 250 of those
birds now and you think about and some of them
thousands of birds so you you go out and and
you have several hundred people catching every
migratory bird season you know when they come
from the north heading south and when they're
heading north i mean uh heading from the south
to the north so you have them being caught on
both ends when they're coming down and when they're
going up. So this bird is going to create a big
issue when it comes to the balance of the ecosystem.
This bird is there for a reason. Don't ask me
why, but that they're there for a reason, right?
And I think it's a responsibility and for us
to protect them. So that's why I love the job
and the mission of the U .S. Fish and Wildlife
Service and, you know, working on the coverage,
catching these people and talking about reward
versus punishment, you know, maximum five years,
100 ,000. Fine. So they figure the reward and
balance and, you know, how many agents does the
Fish and Wildlife Service have? Yeah, shockingly.
Few compared to other federal agencies, that's
for sure. And compared to our broad mission,
yeah. And compared to how serious wildlife trafficking
is around the world, yeah, we have very few.
Indeed. But they also, the good thing is that,
you know, you doing your many years in the service
of this country in protecting the wildlife and
the environment of the country, not only here
in the United States, but abroad. We garnered
some good partnerships with the state, our state
officers, county and city, but also our other
federal partners that help us out. Yeah, exactly.
You know, be able to accomplish our maximum number
allow of agents for Fish and Wildlife Service
250. Right. If you got to look at it, you got
to find ways and. ways to be able to garner support
from everybody around me. Yeah. I think during
my career, I remember maybe only a year or two
out of my whole career where we were fully staffed.
I mean, usually we're understaffed. And right
now, I think we're grossly understaffed. You
know, back to the migratory nature of these birds
and the impact. And you said they're targeting
primarily males for their singing ability. And
we'll talk about that in just a second. You know
just for listeners kind of sense of orientation
you know these birds can travel thousands of
miles over a year moving great distances not
just across states but across. International
borders some of them go far south america during
the winter and then for the summer they come
up as far as arctic in canada and so. You know,
taking having any point along that migratory
route where you're taking significant numbers
of birds out can have dramatic impact on their
ability to breed, feed, you know, do whatever
they need to do once they get to their final
destinations. You know, if you're taking out
a lot of males in Florida and all of a sudden
those males don't show up at the nesting sites
in the north could devastate the population and
ruin their nesting season for that year. Visually.
Uh, for my listeners, if you just Google, uh,
migratory bird flyways, uh, you will see the
United States is kind of divided into a number
of different flyways. You have like the Pacific
flyway, the central flyway, and these are like
general migratory routes through North America.
It's kind of interesting to see just kind of
give you a picture for how these birds travel
and how poachers might specifically, you know,
know about those flyways and target birds during
the right time of the year. With regard to the
singing, this competition stuff's really interesting
to me, Walter, because it's really capitalizing
on natural behavior, right? In the wild, these
males would sing to each other and in the presence
of females, and presumably the strongest singer
would be the most likely to mate with females,
right? Indeed. That's correct. And the one that
has the most color. Coloration, yes. And so these
guys are specifically targeting, I mean, I assume
the strongest singers would be most valuable
to them in these competitions. So they're taking
out the strongest birds. That's what they're
looking for anyway, right? Yeah. And, you know,
depending on how strong of a singer that bird
is, the value of that bird, going to hundreds
of dollars, thousands of dollars. I'll be buying
birds for a hundred and undercover capacity for
you know, anywhere from $50 to $1 ,000. Crazy.
Yeah, so they have double value. They have value
in that they get sold to people who want to compete
with them. But then they also have value in the
betting process, right? There's multiple ways
people make money on them. Correct. Just think
about it. You have the most colorful, gross breasted,
gross big, right? And you have the strongest
singing bird in Miami per se. That bird is going
to cost thousands of dollars when you sell it.
And just think about you have a few of those,
you know, let's say you have 15 of those that
are very strong because you train them. You got
them accustomed to the cage, you know, for the
singing competitions that you face them off and
they won't Stop seeing Then that that bird has
double the body. Like you said, right the color
the singing abilities and The ability for that
bird to sing in a competition That's amazing
that's amazing and you said they don't it's not
like they're just targeting one or two birds
some of these guys will go out and catch don't
they'll have hundreds right or more than They
will have cages, like large cages, like you see
this door right here. Uh huh. You know, like
a full size room full of birds. Wow. You can
walk into this aviary and it'll be full of birds.
Not everybody has that, but most of them have
anywhere between 25 birds to 40 birds. Yeah.
So you talk, these groups here. can have a significant
impact on populations and breeding success rates
by taking these birds out during the migratory
season, right? Oh, yeah. And just think about
it. You know, they're coming down from North,
from Canada or, you know, Northeast, and these
birds are flying. They're not being only targeting
in the Carolinas, Georgia, North Florida, Central
Florida, but South Florida on the way down. And
the same thing as they're going up north. when
summer is in the North. Because they will come
down for the cold months, because they will freeze
in the North. So they'll come down South, they'll
fly to South America, Central America, but a
lot of Cuba, the Caribbean. And then they'll
come back, the juveniles will come back, they're
just beginning to get their color. And then they're
being trapped here. in South Florida, Central
Florida, North Florida, and so up north, you
know, heading. Yeah, all the way up the flyway.
That's a very important point because Agent Dirk
Hoy and I experienced the same thing when we
did Operation High Roller, which was people killing
hawks and falcons to protect their pigeons. And
that was the problem is as hawks and falcons
made their way up the Pacific flyway in every
city, there were these pigeon people who killed
them. So it's not like they just In your case,
it's not like they just get trapped in Florida.
They get trapped in the next state and the next
state and the next state all the way up the flyway.
So the whole time they're trying to migrate,
their populations are being cut down by various
causes. But one of them, these people that are
trapping and illegally poaching these birds,
which is really insidious. So let's talk about
your case now a little bit. You and I both said
we had no idea this was really going on, right?
We didn't know about these singing competitions
How did you figure it out? How did it come to
your attention? And how did you get involved
in like an actual investigation of these guys?
Give us the background there so You know operation
ordinary birds started in 2012. Okay, my predecessors
of mine like Dave Dave Ferrell. Dave Hubbard
in Miami. Dave Ferrell. Fernando Gatorno. Elvin
Monge. They had this investigation. As people
move on, it was passed down to these people that
I just mentioned, right? Right, right. They had
investigations going on with the state of Florida.
I came in. I'm a Hispanic born in Latin America.
And my first language is Spanish, right? So I
was like a fit in because I spoke the language.
I understood the culture. I understood everything,
right? So they they asked me to work on the cover
doing on the cover buys or buy bus, right? Oh
yeah, perfect. You see my little parrot thing
there. Stay with the theme very good. He's wearing
it. wearing a shirt that has a parrot on it.
That's nice. Indeed. Well, my car. So it's a
car. Oh, yeah, it is a Macaw. You're right. So,
uh, you know, you I got involved in this and
I started working and I liked it because I was
making an impact on this investigation. Right.
An impact on preserving, protecting this migratory
birds. So, you know, you and I were the boys
of wildlife because they had no boys. Right.
Right. So I think I told you this earlier, how
many Americans know about this wildlife trafficking
going on? You know, not only migratory birds,
but other species, sea turtles, you know, hawksbill
sea turtles, eggs being, you know, dug out at
the beach or, you know, to toava in, you know,
that is being pushed to the extinct. Oh, yeah.
On and on, corals, sea cucumbers. We name it.
But how many Americans, how many are country
men and women know about this? I didn't know.
You didn't know until we got into this. So I
think this program that you're doing is awesome
because it could have an impact and educate the
American public because, you know, we need to
do that. Right. So, you know, I got into this
start working it, you know, like I said, Spanish
is my first language and I understood a lot of
what was going on. So, you know, it'd be hard
for me to go try to infiltrate a trafficking
network that speak Mandarin. It'd be hard, right?
But I'm still in with the Spanish. People speak
Spanish. So I got in and started doing undercover
buys. with the assistance of all the team here
in Miami. But not only in Miami, but also in
Texas, Nevada, California, Wisconsin, and abroad.
I even had the help of Customs and Border Protection,
the state of Florida, Florida Fish and Wildlife
Conservation Commission. uh, postal inspectors,
Homeland security investigations. Right. I'd
see you. Right. Yeah. Um, it was, it's a great
team effort to be able to accomplish the mission.
As I mentioned earlier, it's only 250 agents
maximum. Right. My entire career, maybe we had
200 agents and then to be able to have that shades
across the world and plus people here. And that
includes management, not just level agents, right?
So it was awesome to be able to target this,
to get undercover, work undercover, direct and
manage undercover operations to do this. John
O 'Ryder was a great partner to work with and
was the lead agent for Operation Honorbirds,
the lighter years of 2021 to 2024. uh, where
we got to like 30 people. Wow. You know, uh,
that we charge and arrested and approximately,
right? Yeah. Yeah. And, uh, Alex Kulin, Alexander
Kulin, he's awesome. He, you know, he used to
work for CBP. Now he's a special agent with us.
He used to work for custom border protection.
He, you know, helped me find people that are
advertising online. They post this. I know you
didn't ask me, but I want to let you know. I
was just going to ask you, how do you find these
people? Yeah. Yeah, well, they advertise on Facebook,
Craigslist or other websites, you know, and they
create their own little shop rooms and call a
certain name of a bird or a code word for it.
Like Descollados in Miami, you know, which is
the rose breasted gross beak, right? Or Mariposa,
which would be the painted buntings, right? Or
Azulejo, which is the indigo bunting, or Azulejón,
which is the blue gross beak. And you know, they'll
advertise this $250, $50, you know, $700 for
this bird, $1 ,000 for this bird. Right. And
then, you know, you just make contact when you
start communicating. One thing you have to be
careful is they're always looking out. Because
they know, they know you're looking, you, I mean,
Ed and Walter as a special agent working on the
cover capacity or the state officers are looking
at them. Because we have a unique niche, right?
We are the experts in wildlife trafficking and
investigations. So, you know, just like the Secret
Services. best 50 is protecting the president
and you know counterfeit money right yeah the
marshals is fugitives and and people so we the
fish and wildlife service officer law enforcement
is wildlife trafficking right you know with the
partnerships worldwide by here in the united
states domestically yeah targeting this trafficking
of wildlife so so they do some uh awesome work
and take down some a large amount of people you
know this investigation had like 150 people alone
across the country yeah yeah across the country
not just here in south florida but like i said
arizona texas california nevada wisconsin puerto
rico uh and georgia and throughout florida you
mentioned you know you you You define their offers
for sale online and you know, imagine every single
one of those offers just putting it up online
Offering to sell a migratory bird that in and
of itself as a felony But how did you you mentioned
they were a little bit, you know, they knew what
they were doing was illegal Did you ever get
questioned by them or how did you get yourself
in? Undercover and start buying birds and did
you go to any fights or competitions? That's
the singing fights the singing competitions It's
a lot of questions. You contact them, right?
Yeah. You contact them on Facebook and they will
ask you questions like, where do you live? What
do you do? And they try to catch you in a lie,
right? Yep. Because they're very skittish about,
you know, selling to people that they don't know.
New customer, right? Yeah. But remember, greed
will get the fish. Greed will get the criminal.
And so, you know, you just, you as an undercover
agent or undercover, working undercover, you
have to know what you're talking about. Right.
If you don't know what you're talking about,
you're going to get caught. Right. But so you
have to study the species and know the background
about birds, know about where this birds migrate,
where this birds mostly at. Because I think I
mentioned earlier, there's some species that
are only to the western. side of the country,
the United States, some on the Easter side of
the country. Right. And some of them central.
Right. And so you have to know about this and
you kind of have to know their nicknames of this
verse that they use for it. Yeah. The code words
you mentioned. Yeah. So they're not out there
actually saying, you know, House Finch or, you
know, painted bunting. They're using code words
so that maybe it's a little harder for law enforcement
to pick up on it. Right. Yeah, I mean, if you
showed up, hey, can you sell me a Pasarena? Say,
no. This guy is a biologist or some cop. So get
out of here. We don't want to deal with you.
There's the risk of working undercover because
you're going by yourself. You might have a gun,
you might not have a gun when you go and do this
undercover buys. And if they discover that you're
a cop, they suspect that you're a cop. It could
go bad very quickly. Yeah, very, very bad. So,
you know, you have to have a plan for that. So
that's how I was able to get in because of my
skills, Spanish and, you know, knowing the culture,
background, knowing the nicknames of the birds
and, you know, all the history about birds, where
they fly, where they're mostly trapped. You don't
know that most of this stuff happens in Cuba.
Cuban connection. What's the what's the connection
with Cuba? So they, you know, you can look it
up on YouTube and, you know, bird competitions
in Cuba. Right. And you find videos about, you
know, indigo buntings, painted buntings, uh,
roast breasted, gross big, you know, a bunch
of people. in a park or somewhere or in a house
having these competitions, but supposedly the
best birds, the most trained, the most colorful
come from Cuba. So they traffic those birds,
and those birds garnish thousands of dollars.
Wow. Right? Okay. So they'll give them Tylenol
or something that will put them to sleep. They
put them on hill rollers or in a sock and conceal
them in their body or in a bag. And, you know,
the flight from Cuba is what 45 minutes, 30 minutes
to Miami. And, you know, in hopes that they go
by customs and voter protection and they don't
get detected. We caught a few people in and at
the Miami International Airport, Fort Lauderdale,
even Tampa and for miners. No kidding. Airports,
yeah. And that's a much more serious offense
once they do that. That's a smuggling charge,
which is a much more serious felony. Oh, yeah.
Yeah, interesting. So, okay, so there's Cuban
Americans involved. There's a demand for the
birds that come out of Cuba because they're more
prized. And then there's this heavy, you know,
impact on migratory birds within the United States,
continental US as well. it must've been kind
of rewarding to be getting in there and knowing
you were making a difference, but also like a
little bit like, Oh my gosh, what's, what's,
what's going on, right? The more you learn, the
more kind of horrified you get. One tele talk
to us a little bit about like, how many buys
did you make and how did you decide? when you're
going to charge somebody, right? Like how long
did you go on with making undercover contacts
with people before you kind of said, okay, this
is enough killing, or not killing, but catching
birds. We got to take this case down. So, you
know, you start buying from these people and
you know, you're always in coordination with
the U .S. Attorney's Office, which is the prosecutor
for the federal government, right? The AUSAs,
Assistant United States Attorneys. And you're
in coordination with them and then you say, hey,
look, this individual is selling this bird and
they give you specifics, right? That, you know,
you got to prove certain elements of the crime.
Once you have proven those certain elements of
the crime, then it will be the prosecutor that
decides when to go and take this this individual
down. But sometimes you. not just take one individual
down, you have to wait and take out the whole
network out. So you infiltrate the network, right?
And yes, some birds are lost, but you look at
the overall, what is that you accomplish? You
want to accomplish just giving someone a ticket
or taking the entire network down. And the goal
of any undercover operation is to have an impact
on what's gonna happen in the future. So people
take notice and say, well, you know, hey, this
could be an undercover agent from the Fish and
Wildlife Service or from the state of Florida
or from whatever state, right, that is coming
after us. So our goal is to stop the trafficking
and the cruelty to these animals, these birds,
right? That's the goal. And so you always have
to coordinate and work with not just the U .S.
Attorney's Office, but your counterparts, the
city, the county, the state, and your other federal
counterparts about when is the proper time and
the right time to take these people down. It's
an interesting dilemma, isn't it? And we all
faced it as investigators at some point in our
careers where, like you said, if you just take
the case down on the very first person you catch,
if you have a kind of a systemic problem where
you've got people commercializing wildlife, if
you just catch that first person and you charge
them with the very first offense they commit,
you're really not addressing the big problem,
right? You're, you're just, you know, punishing
one person. They get a probably a minimal fine
cause it's one incident and the rest of the community
is like, ah, too bad. That sucker got caught.
You know, I won't get caught. It's a really,
really important to take down the whole network
or as many people as you can, or at least the
most important players because well, first of
all, they get a harsher penalty if you document
that they are engaged in this in a systemic way.
Second, you catch multiple people. Everybody,
you know, there's more of a deterrent because
everybody's aware, like, oh, shit, they are organized.
Right. And then, you know, thirdly, it gets the
media's attention and it gets the U .S. Attorney's
Office attention when you have multiple people
involved in ongoing criminal activity. And that's
the way you ultimately deter. But for us as investigators,
you always end up in this moment where it's like,
oh, my gosh, I'm documenting violations. And
when do I take it down? Right. It's like, sometimes
it's just like, I don't know. Is it time? Is
it not time? And it does take a little bit of
a group effort. And it does take, I guess, you
know what some, I hate to say balls, but sometimes
you just have to say, this is it. I'm taking
it down. And yeah, we're not going to get everybody
in the group, but we're going to get the big
players. Right. Yeah, and not only does it take
that, what you're just explaining, but also takes
resources, right? Money to do the undercover
buys, setting up sting operations, setting up
fake businesses. It just takes a whole approach
and the support of management, right? But management
can support you all day. They can, but if the
U .S. attorney's office is not arrested, you
really have no case because they're the ones
that are going to prosecute. Right. You know,
we were fortunate here in South Florida, we have
Thomas Watts Fitzgerald and the environment here
that were very aggressive and and prosecuting,
but also they have their limitations too, you
know? Sure. You're lucky if Miami had a fantastic
U .S. attorney recently retired, Tom Watts Fitzgerald,
fantastic, well known across the country as being
aggressive and supporting US Fish and Wildlife
Service. We were lucky in LA, too. We had an
environmental crimes unit within the local US
Attorney's office, and we always had really fantastic
prosecutors to support our cases. It's not always
true around the country. Sometimes our agents
are just going in and taking their cases to the
general criminal division, and they're competing
with cases from the FBI and Secret Service and
ATF. Sometimes it's hard to get US attorneys
interested in a wildlife case. But this case,
I wanted to ask you, did you ever go to one of
these singing competitions? I didn't specifically.
I would take my birds to a specific subject that
I have befriended, Armando Spino. He was a well
-known big fish in South Florida with trapping
and selling this bird. And he had some pretty
good birds, singing birds and colorful birds.
But he also said I had some, a bunch of birds
that were not taken care of, you know, and that's
what really, what I wanted to stop, right? Yeah.
You know, not only the trapping and trafficking,
but the, the cruelty to this animals that there
was taking place. And, you know, I would go and
bring my bird and have a singing competition
with the CSO because I was training my bird to
go to the singing competition. So and you know,
we don't only just have one case going on we
have several cases. Yeah, but You know back going
back to earlier it takes dedication, you know,
I'll be working 18 hour days 16 hour days 12
hour days To be able to get this case going.
Yeah, but not just me, but also my other co -workers
Yeah that going on, you know plus, you know after
you have a meeting an undercover meeting you
got to go home and make a special report about
that particular meeting and you got to transcribe
all those, all those recordings, especially if
some of them are in Spanish, you got to translate
them, right? That's it. Well, that's all work.
Oh, man. I'll tell you, I mean, a 30 minute recording
will take eight hours to translate. Totally.
Totally. It's, uh, do an undercover. This can
be a nightmare. Yeah. Because of the money issues,
the fun issues, we have to do it ourselves. Exactly.
Yeah. Yeah. It's rare. hire people to do our
translations. Anyway, so you raised an interesting
point, and that is, what was this guy's name?
He said, was it Armando? That was his name? Armando
Spino. Yeah. And the other one was Laredo, Alejandro
Laredo. And there was another guy they called
El Doctor, the Doctor in South Florida. And you
have Alain Armando Guevara, who were Probably
the biggest ones around South Florida. They were
doing all this trapping and stuff and you probably
find news articles if you do a search on them
on Google or on the internet about it. They got
taken down and Laredo even crucified a bird and
you could probably see that. I mean literally
crucified, put it on the cross. What? Yeah, and
crucified a bird that was eating his Oh, so he
targeted like a hawk or something like that,
huh? Yeah, I forgot the exact bird. He tortured
it to death, basically. Yeah, he tortured it.
And, you know, he recorded and posted online.
Geez, Louise. Why? Oh, my God, that's awful.
But it doesn't surprise me, honestly. I saw it
with the pigeon fanciers out here in California.
They hated hawks and falcons. They hated predatory
birds and they sometimes tortured them and it
was not pleasant. That's insidious. But you raise
an interesting point with this Armando guy and
the others, these major players who were trapping
a lot of birds. You mentioned that some of the
birds were kept in cruel conditions or didn't
survive and I'm betting You can't tell me if
I'm wrong. The birds that were not treated well
were not the strong singers, right? No, no, no,
no. Yeah. I mean, what this illustrates is that
these people, and this is critical, as you mentioned,
part of the purpose of this podcast is to help
educate people about what's going on out there.
And it is critical for people to understand that
these people you were after, you were infiltrating
and that you ultimately caught, they're not bird
lovers. Right? They view these birds as a commodity,
in a commercial way. They're catching these birds
and they're keeping these birds and caring for
them only so far as these birds make money for
them. That's it. That's it. It's a commercial
transaction. It's a money -generating source.
And they don't care about these birds. They will
tell you, oh no, it's our tradition, it's our
customs. They don't care about these birds. I
mean, I learned that during my undercover operations.
I mean, they hold this birds and, you know, hardly
any feathers on this bird, you know, like you,
you know, pluck all the feathers from the bird
and then, you know, this birds are living a horrible
life. Yeah. But yeah, they will tell you. Oh,
you know, as a culture, we're taking care of
this bird. We're saving it because their numbers
are going down. The population is going down.
So we're saving it by trapping them. And well,
those birds are they don't live long in captivity.
Number two, they don't reproduce, right? In captivity.
And why is because most of them were males. I'm
not going to tell you there were no females,
but most of them were males because they're the
most colorful ones and the strongest singers.
Right. Yeah. And I can't tell you how many times
I heard that after somebody was arrested, they'd
get in front of a judge and they'd try to portray
themselves as some sort of a bird lover or conservationist
who just kind of, you know, went a little too
far. It's total bullshit. I mean, you and I know
that, but that's why I said this program is important.
You know, I wish they were more like this because
then the the American public knows about this.
Right. I always I could say it now that I'm no
longer there. But, you know, I think the Fish
and Wildlife Service should do a better job in
in educating the American public. Yes. On what's
happening with wildlife trafficking, as you know,
is either the third or fourth most lucrative
illegal business in the world, right? And to
be in third or fourth is, it has to be big. But
the wildlife trafficking is not just wildlife
trafficking. It's connected with arms, with drugs,
with the cartels. There's a method now that the
Mexican cartels were using wildlife to pay for
the precursors for fentanyl. So I don't know
if you're aware of that. But I think I'd heard
that. I knew that, you know, the cartels were
implicated in Tituaba trafficking in particular.
But yeah, and, you know, that's not just in the
U .S. You mentioned Mexico as well. But, you
know, organized crime is also involved in wildlife
trafficking in Africa. And, you know, there's
a lot of drugs involved as well. we could go
on and on about that. But, you know, this was
a great case. How many, you mentioned there were
hundreds of people that, you know, it wasn't
just you that was doing, was involved in investigation.
There was investigation going on in other states
and other agents kind of leading those, but Operation
Ornery Birds was kind of an all -encompassing
thing for a while. How many people ultimately
got scooped up in the takedown then? How did
that go? So there were multiple takedowns, but
in total it was of approximately 40 to 45 people
that we took down. Nice. Now remember this 2012
to 2024. Yeah, it's a long time, but you know.
And we'd have to go into the details about how
investigations work to kind of understand that.
But sometimes these longer investigations where
it's hard to get in or infiltrate, they can kind
of go in peaks and valleys, right? You might
be succeeding for a while, and then the case
kind of goes dormant for a while because you're
just not making any progress. So it's not like
10 years constantly working on it. Probably there
were some peaks and valleys. When they finally
kind of got on it at the last, it was really
going hard, right? And remember, there's migration
seasons, right? Right. Right. Which last no to
a month or a month and a half. Right. So you
have these migration seasons while this is the
migration season stops, then work stops, right?
Less trapping, right? We are less trapping. There's
always trapping going on, but less trapping,
less cases. And then you have to catch up with
all the other paperwork that you have to do,
as you know, undercover work creates a huge number
of paperwork, a huge amount of paperwork. And,
you know, you have to get approvals and you have
to coordinate all this. So it is a complex, very
complex investigation per se. Plus, of course,
you got other cases you're working on too, because
being a small agency, it's not like very few
agents can devote all their time to one case,
they have to work other things as well. Indeed.
Yeah. And then you have to keep, you have to
keep in contact with these individuals too. Right.
You have to keep the relationship going, right?
Right. You have to keep this relationship because
if you don't, then you become a stranger. Yeah.
So you, you know, you have to sometimes go to
their house and you, you got to go and have a
cup of coffee. You got to pay for that. You know,
the government is going to pay for that, so you
got to use your own money to do this, Diggs.
Like, hey, I just want to have a cup of coffee
with you, see how you're doing. And, you know,
the bad guys appreciate that, just like anybody
else does. They do. Right? Yeah. Relationships
are great. Yeah. This guy is great, man. He's
no cop. Did you, uh, did you have any problems?
Sometimes we've had people on the show have talked
about how they actually got to kind of like some
of the people that they worked undercover. I
certainly had that happen to me. Did you have
any issues like that? I mean, obviously you're
a professional, so you're going to take them
down regardless. But, uh, did you ever have any
situations like that where you're like, Oh, I
hate this guy. And I, I I'm struggling to pretend
to be his friend or actually kind of like this
guy. And I wish he wasn't a criminal. I mean,
Armando Espino was a real nice guy. family man,
but you always have to keep, you know, the professional
thing is like, your job is to make sure you meet
all those elements and that this individual gets
prosecuted because he's having such a big impact
on the traffic and the wildlife, right? But also,
you know, I had an individual that was like way
old and I was like, it reminds me of my grandfather.
I mean, I feel bad for him, but he has to go
to jail. Yeah. There's always somebody you feel
a little sorry for, right? The target. Right.
So you feel like you had an impact in protecting
the species through these cases? Oh, yeah. No,
I mean, thanks to the support and and, you know,
learning about this, I think we we have a huge
impact on the trafficking and trapping of some
birds and. in the United States as a whole. Operation
Texas Melody, there was a spinoff of Operation
Ordinary Birds that Texas, the Houston Sioux
has an area just for some birds. Wow. That came
from this case? From Operation Texas Melody that
I did a bunch on the cover bodies over there.
Once again, because my Spanish. Right. You're
not going to send a newcomer to buy from a Cuban
or a Mexican or something, you know. Definitely,
they would be a little suspicious. Was Operation,
what did you call it, Texas Melody? Was that
Agent Snodgrass's case? Yes, yes. A wonderful
and very talented agent, I could tell you that.
I really enjoy working with him, just like I
didn't. uh, enjoy working with, uh, agent Victor
Penalosa and, uh, who was here in Miami and Alexander
Cullen. You know, those people that really inspire
you to work and work harder and, and just like,
you really want to make the case and you really
want to, uh, do a huge impact because there's
people were so dedicated, right? Yeah. There
were cops cops but they also love the mission
of the fish and water service of protecting the
wildlife in and make sure that i see a future
generations enjoyment hundred percent i've always
said walter i'm sure you agree and you're one
of them you know. I've never met you know on
the whole us fish and wildlife service agents
are among i think the best educated the best
trained and the most tenacious. federal agents
and will be any criminal who comes up against
one because you're going to lose. He will lose
in the long run. The dedication that you have,
you know, is the dedication and the passion and
the belief in that you really are making an impact.
You know, I mean, this wildlife doesn't choose
to be trapped, doesn't choose to be what you
call a receive cruelty. Right. and to be, do
horrible things to it. But, you know, you, as
an agent, you see it as, hey, I'm not only protecting
this wildlife, but I'm protecting the ecosystem.
Yes. Not just here in the United States, but
abroad. Exactly. You mentioned Asia, right? Yep.
Africa, all of Latin America. You know, this,
this burst traveled through thousands of miles
overseas to go one little bird, you know, stops
at a National Wildlife Refuge, breeds, rests,
and then takes off. It's amazing, you know? It
is. Well, you know what? I've always said, you
know, if you commit a wildlife crime, a federal
wildlife crime, a U .S. Fish and Wildlife Service
Special Agent will pursue you. They will catch
you and they will put you in jail. It's just
a matter of time. Walter, what I'm going to do
is I will put some documents and some photographs
up on the Nature Secret Service webpage so if
people are interested in learning more about
the types of birds that were involved in your
case, or actually reading some of the case documents
that I'll pull off of Pacer, they're welcome
to go do that. I really appreciate your time.
This has been kind of an eye -opening discussion
about the exploitation of native migratory birds
in the United States, something even as an agent,
I didn't know what was going on. And I'm so happy
that you and other agents took this on and tackled
it and saw it through to the end and took these
guys down. So great job. Thank you so much. And
thank you for coming on the program to tell us
the story. Oh, it's a pleasure to talk to you.
And, you know, just like it was a pleasure working
with you, you know, while we were working, right.
But just to be able to relay the message to the
American public, you know, that this is happening
and that it's a serious thing going on. So thank
you for having this and thank you for, you know,
your service and the U .S. Christian Wildlife
Service. Thank you, Walter. Same to you. It was
always a pleasure. We were on opposite sides
of the country, but we ran into each other at
training and different times. And I always enjoyed
talking to you. I knew I could tell. I could
see in your eyes you had the fire like I did.
It doesn't happen without team effort, right?
There you go. That's the keyword team. Exactly.
What is it? Agent Glenn Yech always says one
team, one fight, right? Yes, indeed. Yeah. All
right, Walter, thank you so much for being on
the show. I appreciate it. We'll have you back
again. And I know you and I'll stay in touch
for everybody else. 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.