The Wild Crime Report for 21 April 2025
Sperm whales, ants and ivory in East Africa and big cats on a Spanish Island.
Hello and welcome to this week’s report.
Man pleads guilty to importing Sperm Whale parts
The previous week, the District Attorney for South Carolina reported that a local man pled guilty to importing and selling the bones and teeth from sperm whales. 69 year old Lauren H. DeLoach from St Helena Island in South Carolina had illegally imported the whale products from Australia, Latvia, Norway and the Ukraine across a three year period from 2021 to 2024.
DeLoach conducted a minimum of 30 imports and got his suppliers to label the consignments as ‘plastics’ in order to evade detection. He then used the online trading platform eBay to sell the goods, which prosecutors claim he did on at least 85 occasions. He was found guilty for violations under the US Lacey Act and the Marine Mammal Protection Act and faces a maximum of 6 years imprisonment and a fine of $250,000.
Ivory seizures across East Africa
Kenyan authorities announced last week that three suspects and 60 kilograms of ivory were seized in a joint operation by the Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS) and Kenyan Police. The bust took place in the Kigene area of Nkubu Townshi which is in proximity to Meru National Park, where the tusks are suspected to have been sourced.
Meanwhile, a similar covert police operation was conducted on the same weekend in Zambia with police arresting six suspects and seizing 528.80 kilograms of raw elephant ivory. The suspects were not named but the press release from the Department of National Parks and Wildlife nominated one of the arrestees as being a Congolese kingpin.
Ants in the pants
Staying in Kenya and a case that sits in the irregular bucket, two Belgian men were charged with trafficking 5,000 ants. The 19 year olds, Lornoy David and Seppe Lodewijckx, were found to be in a guest house in possession of 5,000 live queen ants stored in 2,244 tubes.
In an unrelated case, two other ant traffickers, one Kenyan and another Vietnamese, were also arrested in Kenya earlier in the month for also collecting ants contrary to Kenya’s Wildlife and Conservation Management Act. All four men have pled guilty and are awaiting sentencing.
Tiger smuggling operation on Spanish isle
And in the Spanish island of Mallorca, a couple were arrested after Spanish police seized 19 animals and uncovered a global big cat smuggling operation. The couple, identified as Russian nationals, are suspected to have been raising the exotic animals and selling them online. A third suspect, an Israeli national is also been investigated by police.
The Guardia Civil specialist unit SEPRONA who are investigating the case are believed to have been following up on an operation from March. It’s believed that many of the animals were sourced from Russia and Eastern Europe with the destination being to smuggle them into the European Union with false documentation.
Stay wild.