"Ray" wrote in message ...
All paphiopedilums are CITES Appendix I listed, so are banned from
international trade. As they are not native to the US, their presence
indicates an illegal act.

Not quite. Trade in wild-collected appendix I plants is permitted
under certain limited circumstances (for scientific research, but not
commercial sales). Artificially propagated seedlings of Appendix I
species can be traded, so theoretically it would be possible to import
legal paphs or phrags if the native country issues permits. The
problem is that the Vietnamese paphs on the worldwide market were not
exported from Vietnam as flasked seedlings. Consequently, they are
illegal, and flasked seedlings derived from that stock are also
illegal. Other nations may be more lax, but the US has apparently
decided to obey both the letter and the spirit of the law.

See:
http://www.orchidweb.org/cites_news.html

and
http://www.cites.org for the text of the convention. See especially
Article VII paragraph 4.