A 39-year-old man currently on trial on charges of smuggling various endangered animal species into Japan has told police he had a hand in illegally importing more than 1,000 rare animals in the six years to 2005, it was learned Monday.
Metropolitan Police Department officers sent papers on another case involving Yoshiyuki Abiko -- in which he allegedly violated the Foreign Exchange and Foreign Trade Law by smuggling four rhinoceros iguanas, which are listed under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora, into Japan -- to prosecutors the same day.
According to police, Abiko and an accomplice, who was not identified, smuggled the iguanas into Japan by hiding them inside a radio cassette player in July 2003. They allegedly bought the animals in the United States for 20,000 yen apiece.
After going through reptile wholesaler Tsuyoshi Shirawa, 37, the iguanas were sold at a Tokyo pet shop for 1.48 million yen each, police said. Shirawa is currently on trial on charges of violating the foreign trade law.
According to Abiko's statement to police, he has illegally smuggled about 1,100 turtles listed as the most endangered under CITES, including the radiated tortoise, as well as roughly 100 whose trade is restricted under the same convention.
He has also admitted illegally importing more than 40 crocodiles and squirrel monkeys.
