Subject: Smuggler busted

From: [email-masked] (Scott Feldmeyer)
Date: 27 May 1995 11:09:59 -0500

>From  the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
	Friday May 26, 1995
	By Dave Daley
	"Dealer pleads guilty to smuggling rare butterflies" 
	In what prosecutors say is one of the biggest exotic butterfly
smuggling cases in the country, a Muskego rare insect dealer is pleading
guilty to illegally smuggling more than 30000 protected butterflies and
beetles into the United States in the last decade. 
	Charles Kondor, who pleaded guilty to the smuggling charges
Thursday in federal court in Milwaukee, sold the butterflies and beetles
out of businesses in Hales Corners and Fond du Lac, his home and at state
fairs and exhibits across the country, prosecutors say. 
	"This is one of the largest cases of commercial smuggling of
endangered and protected species ever prosecuted in this country and is
the result of an extensive four year investigation by the US Fish and
Wildlife Service," said US Atty. Thomas Schneider. 
	Agents seized a vanload of the rare butterflies and beetles --
most of them pinned to mats and displayed in cases and sold as art as well
as to collectors -- in raids on Kondor's businesses and home. 
	The butterflies and beetles were smuggled into the US from more
than 20 countries, including Brazil, Malaysia, the Philippines, China,
Uganda and Mexico, and have a wholesalecommercial market value of about
$90,000, prosecutors say. 
	Kondor, considered a major rare insect dealer, started as a
collector but then began businesses called Creative Arts Unlimited in
Hales Corners and the Rainforest Connection inFond du Lac. 
"He did this year after year and made trip after trip," said
Richard Dickinson, senior agent.  "He made a good living doing
this.  He'd go to a foreign country,  capture and kill a species
 and then would it by mail to himself." 
	Some of the seized butterflies and beetles were on display at the
Federal Building, where Schneider urged the public to be cautious in
buying such merchandise. 
	"We are especially concerned at the volume of endangered
species or protected species which were being caught, killed and
smuggled into the United States for sale to the public,"
 Schneider said.  "Members of the public should know that possession of
these endangered species is against the law." 
	Kondor faces up to five years in prison on the smuggling charge, 
and Schneider said he expected Kondor would get
some prison time.  Kondor is scheduled to be sentenced July 21.