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#1
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illegal orchids or orchid smuggling.....
Hey All!
Workinng on a Case Study of Illegal Orchid Smugglings for a school project. Anyone have any first hand experiences with this? I would be interested to hear anyones experiences in dealing with underground Orchids. Confidentiality is assured. Would be up for either email correspondence and/or a quick telephone chat. I'm in Canada - but you could be wherever! Drop me a line at fergusonwoods AT hotmail DOT com if you're interested! Thanks! |
#2
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illegal orchids or orchid smuggling.....
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#3
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illegal orchids or orchid smuggling.....
thanks very much for your reply, your answer looks like it will be very
helpful. to answer your question it's a 10 page paper for a class called "The Underground Economy". The class focuses on underground economic activities. It's a mid level class in a 4 year economic problem. I will start looking through the Orchid Guide Digest. if anyone else has any more helpful hints I would great appreciate it, |
#4
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illegal orchids or orchid smuggling.....
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#5
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illegal orchids or orchid smuggling.....
ok - so im now fascinated with Silva's and Norris' case. Apparently
they would get fake permits for legal orchids, then ship illegal ones with these legit permits? It said on the US department of agriculture's website that they even devised a code to determine what these orchids were? Does anyone have any further information? |
#6
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illegal orchids or orchid smuggling.....
ok, now another source is telling me they didnt' do anything wrong!
geeze louis |
#7
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illegal orchids or orchid smuggling.....
The accusation was that they intentionally mislabeled plants to get them
through customs. I seriously doubt that they did, and I don't think the FWS folks had the expertise to determine if they did or not. Both pled out to not go bankrupt from legal costs. -- Ray Barkalow - First Rays Orchids - www.firstrays.com Plants, Supplies, Artwork, Books and Lots of Free Info! "jamiemtl" wrote in message ups.com... ok, now another source is telling me they didnt' do anything wrong! geeze louis |
#8
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illegal orchids or orchid smuggling.....
When you're a Jet, you stay a Jet!
K Al wrote: K Barrett aka Orchid Moll...she's run with the best of 'em, but *she* ain't got caught. |
#9
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illegal orchids or orchid smuggling.....
jamiemtl wrote:
ok - so im now fascinated with Silva's and Norris' case. Apparently they would get fake permits for legal orchids, then ship illegal ones with these legit permits? It said on the US department of agriculture's website that they even devised a code to determine what these orchids were? Does anyone have any further information? That's why I said this could become a life's work. Its a great story. To answer your question about how this is done. If you were to go to any orchid show you'd see orchids for sale, and mostly they are out of bloom. Yous see just a mass of green plant stuffs. One out of bloom orchid plant - for the most part - looks like any other orchid plant of the same variety. The way we tell them apart is by the tag the vendor puts on the plant. For ease in labelling, vendors will label their plants by number and have a master list as to what all the numbers mean. Then when they get to where ever they are going they'll put a better tag on the plant. So you'll see plants tagged '1167 Soph cernua' and some just '1167' and you as teh purchaser have to know/ask what '1167' is. Pretty much this is standard operating procedure, but to a customs agent or a reporter looking for a story it could look like a "code". Nevertheless, the key to the crime is that one orchid looks pretty much like another of the same variety when its out of bloom. So, your cohort (in the country of origin) writes up a bunch of paperwork saying you two are importing an easy to get plant like Phragmipedium schlimii (an example only). He gets CITES & USFWS (endangered species) permits to import Phrag schlimii. The paperwork says item #123 is Phrag schlimii. But really item #123 is rare, sexy Phrag kovachii (an example only), a plant people would kill for. The customs agents look over his shipment, sees that a bunch of Phrags are coming in, but they really have no idea WHAT they are because one out of bloom phrag looks pretty much like another. You pick up the plants at the customs house. Your cohort has emailed you the real list, stating #123 is kovachii. Bada bing! You're in the money. You contact your friends who you know will want the plants no matter what the cost, and you laugh all the way to the bank. Unless you are George Norris, who - according the the feds - never deleted his email or cleaned his hard drive and they found the trail. Then you wind up in prison. Note: George wasn't busted for Phrag. kovachii, Selby Gardens and Michael Kovach were, I just used those species as an example. I could go on, but its your homework, LOL!! If you can figure out the OGD's search feature you should be able to find Norris's own post about how the feds treated him when they served their search warrant. I thought it was chilling. You may also be able to find an account of how Eurpoean vendors filled the back of a pick up truck with illegally collected Phrag kovachiis to sell in Europe. I guess their customs agents are even worse than ours at plant identification _ I'm kidding the story is more convoluted than that, but there's only so much I can write at one time. K Barrett |
#10
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illegal orchids or orchid smuggling.....
Since you are in Canada, this might be of interest:
http://www.bedfordorchids.com/cfia.htm It is an article posted by the Canadian orchid vendor Bedford Orchids describing the beaurocratic incompetence of Toronto officials dealing with orchids legally imported into Canada after the World Orchid Conference that took place in Dijon, France in March 2005. While not precisely on illegal orchid smuggling, this article is related in that it shows some of the beaurocracy that can be in place to try to legally control orchid imports. The article ends on the intriguing statement "I have now found out that every single orchid plant declared in Toronto was detained. Every plant smuggled in was not found. Is Judy Smith and her petty officious nature CFIA 's new incentive to smuggle?" I assume that the author is just assuming that someone did smuggle in some orchids (?). Of course, the article is written from one point of view, and you might want to double-check the facts if you can find other articles on this matter -- vendors who are interested in imported orchids are not very objective observers of CITES enforcement officials. :-) In general you will probably find a lot of bias on this subject, and it may be difficult to sort out who is guilty/innocent, right/wrong, just-enforcing-laws/obstructing-imports. I do not know whether Mr. Norris for example was really guilty or innocent, what I do know is that a lot of the posts to orchid groups on this subject were written by people who sympathized with him -- was it because he was innocent? was it because they were his friends? was it because they in general think that CITES laws are unreasonable (a lot of people who are into orchids believe that these laws are quite stupid to begin with and then enforced incorrectly by officials who do not know enough about orchids)? I do not know, but if I were researching this subject, I would be very careful to double-check the sources, and keep in mind that the authors of any info I read may be biased -- this of course would apply to both sides, since those who ardently claimed that Mr. Norris was guilty may well have been his competitors or people with a grudge or people who are strong supporters of CITES regulations and wanted a conviction as a deterrent to orchid smuggling (?). As I said, I do not know the truth in the matter, but I know that many people in the orchid communities feel very strongly about it. Joanna wrote in message oups.com... Hey All! Workinng on a Case Study of Illegal Orchid Smugglings for a school project. Anyone have any first hand experiences with this? I would be interested to hear anyones experiences in dealing with underground Orchids. Confidentiality is assured. Would be up for either email correspondence and/or a quick telephone chat. I'm in Canada - but you could be wherever! Drop me a line at fergusonwoods AT hotmail DOT com if you're interested! Thanks! |
#12
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illegal orchids or orchid smuggling.....
I spoke at a SOOS meeting this last Spring, and heard all kinds of stories
about the return from France. Apparently it was a specific individual or group in a single point-of-entry that was the issue. Folks entering through other airports breezed through. -- Ray Barkalow - First Rays Orchids - www.firstrays.com Plants, Supplies, Artwork, Books and Lots of Free Info! "J Fortuna" wrote in message news:_%Aef.16668$rO4.1099@trnddc05... Since you are in Canada, this might be of interest: http://www.bedfordorchids.com/cfia.htm It is an article posted by the Canadian orchid vendor Bedford Orchids describing the beaurocratic incompetence of Toronto officials dealing with orchids legally imported into Canada after the World Orchid Conference that took place in Dijon, France in March 2005. While not precisely on illegal orchid smuggling, this article is related in that it shows some of the beaurocracy that can be in place to try to legally control orchid imports. The article ends on the intriguing statement "I have now found out that every single orchid plant declared in Toronto was detained. Every plant smuggled in was not found. Is Judy Smith and her petty officious nature CFIA 's new incentive to smuggle?" I assume that the author is just assuming that someone did smuggle in some orchids (?). Of course, the article is written from one point of view, and you might want to double-check the facts if you can find other articles on this matter -- vendors who are interested in imported orchids are not very objective observers of CITES enforcement officials. :-) In general you will probably find a lot of bias on this subject, and it may be difficult to sort out who is guilty/innocent, right/wrong, just-enforcing-laws/obstructing-imports. I do not know whether Mr. Norris for example was really guilty or innocent, what I do know is that a lot of the posts to orchid groups on this subject were written by people who sympathized with him -- was it because he was innocent? was it because they were his friends? was it because they in general think that CITES laws are unreasonable (a lot of people who are into orchids believe that these laws are quite stupid to begin with and then enforced incorrectly by officials who do not know enough about orchids)? I do not know, but if I were researching this subject, I would be very careful to double-check the sources, and keep in mind that the authors of any info I read may be biased -- this of course would apply to both sides, since those who ardently claimed that Mr. Norris was guilty may well have been his competitors or people with a grudge or people who are strong supporters of CITES regulations and wanted a conviction as a deterrent to orchid smuggling (?). As I said, I do not know the truth in the matter, but I know that many people in the orchid communities feel very strongly about it. Joanna wrote in message oups.com... Hey All! Workinng on a Case Study of Illegal Orchid Smugglings for a school project. Anyone have any first hand experiences with this? I would be interested to hear anyones experiences in dealing with underground Orchids. Confidentiality is assured. Would be up for either email correspondence and/or a quick telephone chat. I'm in Canada - but you could be wherever! Drop me a line at fergusonwoods AT hotmail DOT com if you're interested! Thanks! |
#13
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(another source of info for) illegal orchids or orchid smuggling.....
You might also find the following book a worthwhile read:
Orchid Fever : A Horticultural Tale of Love, Lust, and Lunacy by Eric Hansen Not all of the book is about orchid smuggling, but some of it is. In general, this is a book about how crazy people can get over orchids. One of the stories on orchid smuggling mentioned in this book talks of a case where some orchid grower in Europe (Britain I think) reported another orchid grower (his competitor?) to law enforcement for owning illegally smuggled orchids. The law enforcement officials raided the guy's greenhouse, confiscated the orchids, and then gave them to the informant to take care of (since he knew how to take care of orchids, and the officials did not have another greenhouse etc. available)! -------- Another part of the issue you may be interested in is that one way for orchid species that are illegal in the U.S. to become legally available is that plants that are confiscated from someone who smuggled them in (and thus illegal ones) are then propagated and the divisions or seedlings of those orchids are then legal in the U.S.. An example of that is legally available paph vietnamense in the U.S., which are then provided with paperwork that can trace them legally to plants that were confiscated. Joanna "J Fortuna" wrote in message news:_%Aef.16668$rO4.1099@trnddc05... Since you are in Canada, this might be of interest: http://www.bedfordorchids.com/cfia.htm It is an article posted by the Canadian orchid vendor Bedford Orchids describing the beaurocratic incompetence of Toronto officials dealing with orchids legally imported into Canada after the World Orchid Conference that took place in Dijon, France in March 2005. While not precisely on illegal orchid smuggling, this article is related in that it shows some of the beaurocracy that can be in place to try to legally control orchid imports. The article ends on the intriguing statement "I have now found out that every single orchid plant declared in Toronto was detained. Every plant smuggled in was not found. Is Judy Smith and her petty officious nature CFIA 's new incentive to smuggle?" I assume that the author is just assuming that someone did smuggle in some orchids (?). Of course, the article is written from one point of view, and you might want to double-check the facts if you can find other articles on this matter -- vendors who are interested in imported orchids are not very objective observers of CITES enforcement officials. :-) In general you will probably find a lot of bias on this subject, and it may be difficult to sort out who is guilty/innocent, right/wrong, just-enforcing-laws/obstructing-imports. I do not know whether Mr. Norris for example was really guilty or innocent, what I do know is that a lot of the posts to orchid groups on this subject were written by people who sympathized with him -- was it because he was innocent? was it because they were his friends? was it because they in general think that CITES laws are unreasonable (a lot of people who are into orchids believe that these laws are quite stupid to begin with and then enforced incorrectly by officials who do not know enough about orchids)? I do not know, but if I were researching this subject, I would be very careful to double-check the sources, and keep in mind that the authors of any info I read may be biased -- this of course would apply to both sides, since those who ardently claimed that Mr. Norris was guilty may well have been his competitors or people with a grudge or people who are strong supporters of CITES regulations and wanted a conviction as a deterrent to orchid smuggling (?). As I said, I do not know the truth in the matter, but I know that many people in the orchid communities feel very strongly about it. Joanna wrote in message oups.com... Hey All! Workinng on a Case Study of Illegal Orchid Smugglings for a school project. Anyone have any first hand experiences with this? I would be interested to hear anyones experiences in dealing with underground Orchids. Confidentiality is assured. Would be up for either email correspondence and/or a quick telephone chat. I'm in Canada - but you could be wherever! Drop me a line at fergusonwoods AT hotmail DOT com if you're interested! Thanks! |
#14
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illegal orchids or orchid smuggling.....
With kovachii, I am still a bit confused as to the order it all happened. I
don't think he was intentionally smuggling in the manner your hypothetical example suggests it is done. I have always assumed he had the correct specialized permits to import/export already classified Phrags and that he broke the law kind of by accident because it was an undescribed piece of plant material and shouldn't have left Peru, no matter what kind of permit he had. I have always kind of believed that the issue started when Peru discovered one of their native plants had made it into the US to be described by a US authority and that until then, nobody realized the treaty had this kind of gray area in it that would allow undescribed material to be exported so easily. It has always seemed to me that he was in a kind of gray area and not at all doing what you describe below as smuggling. But my assumptions are probably too simplified. He and Selby broke the law, (as decided by the outcome of the court case) but what should they have done differently? What would have been the correct course of action for an American plant collector in Peru to take after discovering a new species of Phrag? What should Selby have done when this unimaginably serendipitous piece of plant material dropped in their lap? K Barrett" wrote in message . .. jamiemtl wrote: ok - so im now fascinated with Silva's and Norris' case. Apparently they would get fake permits for legal orchids, then ship illegal ones with these legit permits? It said on the US department of agriculture's website that they even devised a code to determine what these orchids were? Does anyone have any further information? That's why I said this could become a life's work. Its a great story. To answer your question about how this is done. If you were to go to any orchid show you'd see orchids for sale, and mostly they are out of bloom. Yous see just a mass of green plant stuffs. One out of bloom orchid plant - for the most part - looks like any other orchid plant of the same variety. The way we tell them apart is by the tag the vendor puts on the plant. For ease in labelling, vendors will label their plants by number and have a master list as to what all the numbers mean. Then when they get to where ever they are going they'll put a better tag on the plant. So you'll see plants tagged '1167 Soph cernua' and some just '1167' and you as teh purchaser have to know/ask what '1167' is. Pretty much this is standard operating procedure, but to a customs agent or a reporter looking for a story it could look like a "code". Nevertheless, the key to the crime is that one orchid looks pretty much like another of the same variety when its out of bloom. So, your cohort (in the country of origin) writes up a bunch of paperwork saying you two are importing an easy to get plant like Phragmipedium schlimii (an example only). He gets CITES & USFWS (endangered species) permits to import Phrag schlimii. The paperwork says item #123 is Phrag schlimii. But really item #123 is rare, sexy Phrag kovachii (an example only), a plant people would kill for. The customs agents look over his shipment, sees that a bunch of Phrags are coming in, but they really have no idea WHAT they are because one out of bloom phrag looks pretty much like another. You pick up the plants at the customs house. Your cohort has emailed you the real list, stating #123 is kovachii. Bada bing! You're in the money. You contact your friends who you know will want the plants no matter what the cost, and you laugh all the way to the bank. Unless you are George Norris, who - according the the feds - never deleted his email or cleaned his hard drive and they found the trail. Then you wind up in prison. Note: George wasn't busted for Phrag. kovachii, Selby Gardens and Michael Kovach were, I just used those species as an example. I could go on, but its your homework, LOL!! If you can figure out the OGD's search feature you should be able to find Norris's own post about how the feds treated him when they served their search warrant. I thought it was chilling. You may also be able to find an account of how Eurpoean vendors filled the back of a pick up truck with illegally collected Phrag kovachiis to sell in Europe. I guess their customs agents are even worse than ours at plant identification _ I'm kidding the story is more convoluted than that, but there's only so much I can write at one time. K Barrett |
#15
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illegal orchids or orchid smuggling.....
I knew I'd confuse the issue by mentioning kovachii or any names at all.
I'm sorry I ever answered the original question. My answer was in regard to HOW orchids could be smuggled using a CODE. Not about kovachii or anything/anyone else. Substitute X and Y for plant names if you prefer. K Al wrote: With kovachii, I am still a bit confused as to the order it all happened. I don't think he was intentionally smuggling in the manner your hypothetical example suggests it is done. I have always assumed he had the correct specialized permits to import/export already classified Phrags and that he broke the law kind of by accident because it was an undescribed piece of plant material and shouldn't have left Peru, no matter what kind of permit he had. I have always kind of believed that the issue started when Peru discovered one of their native plants had made it into the US to be described by a US authority and that until then, nobody realized the treaty had this kind of gray area in it that would allow undescribed material to be exported so easily. It has always seemed to me that he was in a kind of gray area and not at all doing what you describe below as smuggling. But my assumptions are probably too simplified. He and Selby broke the law, (as decided by the outcome of the court case) but what should they have done differently? What would have been the correct course of action for an American plant collector in Peru to take after discovering a new species of Phrag? What should Selby have done when this unimaginably serendipitous piece of plant material dropped in their lap? K Barrett" wrote in message . .. jamiemtl wrote: ok - so im now fascinated with Silva's and Norris' case. Apparently they would get fake permits for legal orchids, then ship illegal ones with these legit permits? It said on the US department of agriculture's website that they even devised a code to determine what these orchids were? Does anyone have any further information? That's why I said this could become a life's work. Its a great story. To answer your question about how this is done. If you were to go to any orchid show you'd see orchids for sale, and mostly they are out of bloom. Yous see just a mass of green plant stuffs. One out of bloom orchid plant - for the most part - looks like any other orchid plant of the same variety. The way we tell them apart is by the tag the vendor puts on the plant. For ease in labelling, vendors will label their plants by number and have a master list as to what all the numbers mean. Then when they get to where ever they are going they'll put a better tag on the plant. So you'll see plants tagged '1167 Soph cernua' and some just '1167' and you as teh purchaser have to know/ask what '1167' is. Pretty much this is standard operating procedure, but to a customs agent or a reporter looking for a story it could look like a "code". Nevertheless, the key to the crime is that one orchid looks pretty much like another of the same variety when its out of bloom. So, your cohort (in the country of origin) writes up a bunch of paperwork saying you two are importing an easy to get plant like Phragmipedium schlimii (an example only). He gets CITES & USFWS (endangered species) permits to import Phrag schlimii. The paperwork says item #123 is Phrag schlimii. But really item #123 is rare, sexy Phrag kovachii (an example only), a plant people would kill for. The customs agents look over his shipment, sees that a bunch of Phrags are coming in, but they really have no idea WHAT they are because one out of bloom phrag looks pretty much like another. You pick up the plants at the customs house. Your cohort has emailed you the real list, stating #123 is kovachii. Bada bing! You're in the money. You contact your friends who you know will want the plants no matter what the cost, and you laugh all the way to the bank. Unless you are George Norris, who - according the the feds - never deleted his email or cleaned his hard drive and they found the trail. Then you wind up in prison. Note: George wasn't busted for Phrag. kovachii, Selby Gardens and Michael Kovach were, I just used those species as an example. I could go on, but its your homework, LOL!! If you can figure out the OGD's search feature you should be able to find Norris's own post about how the feds treated him when they served their search warrant. I thought it was chilling. You may also be able to find an account of how Eurpoean vendors filled the back of a pick up truck with illegally collected Phrag kovachiis to sell in Europe. I guess their customs agents are even worse than ours at plant identification _ I'm kidding the story is more convoluted than that, but there's only so much I can write at one time. K Barrett |
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