Snake smugglers feel the squeeze

[Bushfire]

The two fines were separate incidents. He was fined $3000 + $300 costs for the four GTP he tried to smuggle in. However, when customs and DSE did the raid they found unlicensed animals and would of took his wildlife book and started to investigate all his transactions. The $30,000 fine + $1490 costs related to 29 charges from his unlicensed animals and the fudged paperwork found in his wildlife book, nothing to do with the four GTPs, so are considered separate events.

In my post I was referring to the smuggled offense that that Meyndert Bornman faced and did get to keep license and animals that were legal as not long after the first fine was handed down he had a few for sale adds in various places of a few of his legal animals.

 

[CarpetPythons.com.au]

Where did you get that information bushfire? Would you care to share?

 

[CarpetPythons.com.au]

Unlicensed animals? Did you have access to his wildlife book? Have you got info that was never handed to the DSE. This bornman really is a dodgey character. He should be put in jail for life. $330000 would have been more appropriate and life in jail!

 

[zulu]

re Snake

Unlicensed animals? Did you have access to his wildlife book? Have you got info that was never handed to the DSE. This bornman really is a dodgey character. He should be put in jail for life. $330000 would have been more appropriate and life in jail!

Peadaphiles and people smugglers dont get life,he illegally imported and exported snakes and he got fined and heaps of resources were wasted.
An ideal and more sensible situation would be to allow import and tax it so resources can be put into areas where they are needed for the public.

 

[CarpetPythons.com.au]

Whatever happened to the guy that got caught with the bag full of shinglebacks and albino carpet at sydney several months back? That seemed like a good attempt by customs! It seems like it was swept under the rug? A name was also never released to th media? I wonder how many of his mates ended up getting a knock on tbe door by customs!

 

[Bushfire]

You can get almost all that info from the news articles written on his second court case. From my understanding I believe the $30000 fine is currently under appeal so maybe not set in stone yet. I do agree with you he was pretty dodgy and deserved the fine.

I based my comment on WA being harsher than other states in relation to wildlife crime on a number of cases. When I was at uni I lodged a number of FOI requests for prosecution stats with the wildlife authorities. Generally speaking and only dealing with natives the average fine handed out in WA was $2400 (the highest average), whereas in say Vic those similar offenses were only attracting $800 on average (the lowest average). With that in mind if I was doing something wrong and had to be caught, I would much like my chances of a token fine in Vic than any other state, especially WA.

NB. I cant remember what the period these stats relate too, I think it was the late 90s, but shows an interesting trend on how wildlife crime is treated between the various states.

 

[Retic]

Will you stop trying to bring commonsense into these debates, don't you know where you are ?

Peadaphiles and people smugglers dont get life,he illegally imported and exported snakes and he got fined and heaps of resources were wasted.
An ideal and more sensible situation would be to allow import and tax it so resources can be put into areas where they are needed for the public.

 

[therealstory]

The real Story

I thought you people would like to find out about the real story.
The authorities are blowing this whole smuggeling ring thing way out of proportion.
My friend is married and has three daughters. The girls found the bearded dragons near their tree house out the front. Their dad got them a proper warm house so they could feed them and clean up after them. Quite often you'd see his girls watching tv with the lizard on their chests.
They've had them for a couple of years now.
They only had the geckos for a couple of days, they were in their pet shop buying food for the bearded dragons and the young guy mentioned he was selling his geckos with their cage.
So their Dad bought them for the girls.
Some friends of his in QLD wanted some fish that he had and asked him if there was anything he would like for them. He enquired about some snakes, he wanted to trade the fish for some small friendly snakes for his kids.
They sent him a couple of pics of the snakes and told him they were Solomon Island ground boas. Which don't grow to the size the authorities made out the snakes grow to...... (the snake they showed was the one from the Perth Zoo.....his were only babies 30cm which grow to a maximum of 90 to 120cm).
My friend is not a smuggler and never has been, all of the reptiles were loved and well looked after. He's definately not part of a major smuggling ring, he knows now that he should of had a licence for the lizards.
This is the true story.
Any support for him, or help, would be appreciated.
He doesn't have much money, and is worried he'll loose everything because of the way the authorities are depicting him to everyone.

 

[PilbaraPythons]

The question remains though, how did he purchase the geckos without a licence from a pet shop in the first place? The seller would have asked for his licence details for his own records, that’s assuming of course, the gecko’s were on licence in the first place. I find it extremely hard to believe that he didn’t know he needed a licence , as he was a participant on a W.A reptile forum, surely he isn't that green? I hardly think your friend was any real smuggler though, if he was he wouldn’t have announced his intention to receive the pythons publicly in the first place.
Regardless of his circumstances now, I hope he starts again (this time with a licence) for his children’s sake as it sounds like they really loved the reptiles.

 

[chondrogreen]

If that really is the real story then I am with Dave. I hope he is able to get a licence and collection in the future. Point your friend to this site for further info.

 

[therealstory]

the young guy mentioned he was selling his geckos with their cage.
So their Dad bought them for the girls. they werent in a pet shop the kid that work there was selling them.

 

[Retic]

You mean there isn't going to be a public lynching ? I felt sure this bloke was the kingpin of a some huge smuggling ring and now it turns out he just made a few naive mistakes, damn.