Department of Commerce
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
NOAA Fisheries Service
- Office for Law Enforcement

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
February 15, 2006

POACHERS INDICTED ON CRIMINAL LACEY ACT CHARGES
Indictments include Illegal Poaching & Smuggling of Leopard Sharks

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has announced that the Department of Justice has charged various individuals associated with a San Leandro Church, and other individuals in the aquarium business with violation of the Lacey Act for allegedly illegally harvesting and selling undersized California leopard sharks. Five of the six poachers were also charge with conspiracy.

The nearly two-year long investigation conducted by NOAA Fisheries Service’s Office for Law Enforcement (OLE) in conjunction with U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service; California Department of Fish & Game; United Kingdom’s Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs Fish Health Inspectorate and Netherlands Ministry of Agriculture, Nature and Food Quality General Inspection Service uncovered an international poaching and smuggling operation which dealt in the harvesting, sale and shipment of baby leopard sharks with an estimated market value of over $1.2 million.

For approximately 10 years, Kevin Thompson used vessels owned by the church and him to scour San Francisco Bay for baby leopard sharks. Later, John Newberry of Hayward, Calif., began working with another individual, Vincent Ng, owner of Amazon Aquarium in Alameda, Calif. to supply buyers across the country. A third individual, Sion Lim of San Francisco, Calif. also sold and shipped undersized leopard sharks to a buyer in Michigan. During the course of the operation, authorities estimate that thousands of juvenile leopard sharks were illegally harvested from San Francisco Bay.

The investigation also identified separate suppliers of juvenile Leopard sharks in Los Angeles, Calif. One of these suppliers, Ira Gass of Azusa, Calif., conspired with church members to provide sharks to buyers in the United States and Europe. The European portion of the investigation uncovered sales of hundreds of juvenile sharks shipped through London and Amsterdam to buyers in England and Holland.

These poachers are being prosecuted under the Lacey Act, a federal statute which prohibits the sale, trade or transportation of wildlife or wildlife products harvested or attained in violation of federal, state, tribal or foreign laws.

Both the John G. Shedd Aquarium in Chicago, Ill. and the Monterey Bay Aquarium in Monterey, Calif. collaborated with federal wildlife agents and Illinois State Conservation officers in the transport and care of 19 juvenile leopard sharks confiscated during the course of the investigation.

“The successful outcome of this investigation was due in large to the strong collaboration among the six agencies involved,” according to Special Agent Roy Torres, NOAA Fisheries Service Office for Law Enforcement – Southwest Division. “This cooperation enabled us to unfold the complexity of this poaching and smuggling ring and hopefully put an end to it.”

These living pieces of evidence ranged in size from eight-and-a-half to 17 ½ inches (21.5 cm - 44.5 cm), and were shipped to California in July 2004 by Shedd Aquarium staff and received further care at the Monterey Bay Aquarium.

Nine were ultimately returned to the wild in Monterey Bay in the summer of 2004. Three remain on exhibit at the Monterey Bay Aquarium and seven died soon after confiscation due to their poor health conditions.

Both nonprofit institutions are members of the American Zoo and Aquarium Association, and collaborate with AZA colleagues and other research partners on a wide range of wildlife conservation projects around the world.

California leopard sharks are commonly found in ocean waters along the Oregon, California and Baja Mexico coastline with the major ‘pupping’ areas found within San Francisco and Monterey Bay as well as beaches along the southern California coast. The mother immediately separates from her pups after birth.

Original protection of this species began with the establishment of a sports fishing size limit of 36 inches in1992. California leopard sharks were afforded extra protection under California state law in January 1994 when the minimum size limit of 36 inches was established for any “commercial take” of the species within California jurisdiction.

NOAA Fisheries Service is dedicated to protecting and preserving our nation’s living marine resources and their habitats through scientific research, management and enforcement. NOAA Fisheries Service provides effective stewardship of these resources for the benefit of the nation, supporting coastal communities that depend upon them, and helping to provide safe and healthy seafood to consumers and recreational opportunities for the American public.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, an agency of the U.S. Commerce Department, is dedicated to enhancing economic security and national safety through the prediction and research of weather and climate-related events and providing environmental stewardship of our nation’s coastal and marine resources. Through the emerging Global Earth Observation System of Systems (GEOSS), NOAA is working with its federal partners and nearly 60 countries to develop a global monitoring network that is as integrated as the planet it observes.

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