A former philosophy professor in Minnesota on Monday was fined US$500,000 for smuggling elephant ivory and illegally exporting rhinoceros horns from the US to China, prosecutors said.
Zheng Yiwei (鄭義偉), 43, a former St Cloud State University professor, was also sentenced to three years’ probation and 150 hours of community service by US District Judge John Tunheim in Minneapolis, prosecutors said.
The fine is to be paid to the Lacey Act Reward Fund, which is used by the US Fish and Wildlife Service to reward those who provide information about wildlife crimes and to care for animals held as evidence in ongoing probes.
Zheng’s attorney, Timothy Webb, said the sentence, under which his client will also spend six weekends in jail, was fair.
His employment with St Cloud State University ended in March, said Adam Hammer, a spokesman for the school.
Zheng, a Chinese American also known as Steve Zheng, pleaded guilty in January to smuggling ivory from the US to China in April 2011 and exporting rhino horns in July 2010, in violation of the endangered species act.
“This defendant helped to sustain this illegal market for years, engaging in more than 300 sales and earning more than US$1 million,” Assistant US Attorney Laura Provinzino said in a statement. “His profit was earned at the expense of these threatened and endangered species.”
Zheng operated an online business called Crouching Dragon Antiques in which some of the objects sold were made with ivory and rhino horn, prosecutors said.
The illegal items Zheng smuggled into and out of the US were worth as much as US$1.5 million, prosecutors said.
Rhino horn sells at prices higher than gold in places such as Vietnam, where a belief with no basis in science has recently emerged that it can be used to cure cancer.
South Africa, which has more rhinos than any other country in Africa, saw nearly 1,200 of the animals killed by poachers last yaer, its Environment Ministry said.
There is an arc of illegal animal slaughter on the continent from South Sudan, where conservationists say elephants are being slain by both government forces and rebels, to South Africa.
Trade in rhino horn is banned globally under the terms of the CITES convention.
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