Three Charged With Smuggling Rhino Horns from U.S. to Hong Kong
Three people were charged with wildlife smuggling and related charges for their alleged roles in an international rhino horn smuggling ring in Newark, Miami and New York City, the Justice Department said Feb. 13. Federal grand juries in Newark and Miami indicted Zhifei Li for international smuggling of rhinoceros horns. Shusen Wei, a 44 year old Chinese business executive and an associate of Li, was charged with offering to bribe a federal agent in the Li case. Qing Wang was charged a related criminal complaint in federal court in the Southern District of New York for his role in smuggling libation cups carved from rhinoceros horns from New York to Li via Hong Kong, Justice said.
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According to the indictment filed in Newark, Li, a 28 year-old Chinese national, conspired to smuggle more than 20 raw rhinoceros horns from the U.S. to Hong Kong in 2011 and 2012. Li's co-conspirator smuggled the rhino horns in porcelain vases and mailed them to Hong Kong and China to a person other than Li, in an effort to evade detection by U.S. officials, it said. Li and his co-conspirator bought many of the horns in New Jersey from other members of the conspiracy.
Li also was indicted Feb. 12 in Miami on wildlife trafficking and smuggling charges. According to court records, Li purchased two endangered black rhinoceros horns from an undercover U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service agent in a Miami Beach hotel room for $59,000.