U.S. finally nets global butterfly smuggler

Kojima was easy to spot. In the cavernous exhibition hall, where thousands of collectors swarmed among booths filled with everything from gold scarab beetles to red-backed spiders, Kojima ran the busiest stall.

“He’s no Indiana Jones,” Newcomer thought, sizing up the stocky 53-year-old with the pudgy face, narrow eyes and poor English.

But his butterflies were the finest at the fair.

Newcomer is trim and athletic, with an easygoing manner. He had left behind his gun and his badge. He had assumed a false name. And he had honed his story: how, bored by the business he had inherited from his father, he was looking for a hobby that could also become an investment.

The informant played his part, luring Kojima into conversation about a species of beetle from Bolivia that Kojima had on display.

Newcomer wondered what the beetle looked like alive.

From the back of his booth, Kojima produced an enormous live horned beetle.

“Wow,” Newcomer exclaimed. “How much?”

$10,000 alive.

Is that legal? Newcomer asked.

Kojima shrugged. “It is illegal ... but 99.99 percent it is safe. Sometimes we pay under the table.”

At the end of the day Kojima handed Newcomer a cardboard box. Inside, were 23 dead butterflies. To start your collection, Kojima said.

Newcomer thanked Kojima profusely. Then he drove to his office and marked the box — Evidence Seizure Tag .608372.

———

These days the worldwide illegal trade in endangered species is worth an estimated $10 billion to $15 billion a year, according to law enforcement reports.

It can be as perilous as it is lucrative.

“We’ve been bushwhacked and waylaid and run out of villages by guys with bows and arrows and spears,” said Joshua Lewallen of Insects International in Fort Davis, Texas.

Lewallen has heard tales of insect “mafias” in Thailand, and poaching gangs in Central Asia.

“Collectors want rare things,” Lewallen said. “And if people are willing to pay, others are willing to go to great lengths to provide.”

Into this world, Newcomer immersed himself. There are about 18,000 known species of butterfly. Newcomer started learning their names, their markings, the prices that rare ones bring.

At work Newcomer became known as “the butterfly agent.” Undercover, he was becoming “Yoshi’s friend.”

They met for coffee at Starbucks. They went to Kojima’s favorite Korean barbecue restaurant. They shared personal details, each spinning tales, each cautiously probing for more.

Kojima fabricated a wife and son in Japan.

Newcomer invented a father and girlfriends.

Kojima taught Newcomer the delicate art of moistening the wings of dead butterflies so they could be unfolded and pinned precisely to mounting boards.

Kojima shrugged off the law. Under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) special permits are required to transport endangered animals across borders. CITES also bans the worldwide trade of species that are on the verge of extinction.

It wasn’t like he was dealing in drugs, Kojima said.

Kojima suggested that the two men start an eBay account together: Kojima would provide the specimens and Newcomer would run the Internet side. As part of the deal Kojima gave Newcomer a disc containing photographs of his entire collection.

Kojima returned to Japan, promising to send samples.

Newcomer alerted U.S. Customs. Then he served subpoenas for Kojima’s U.S. bank accounts.

———

Nearly four months passed and Newcomer was beginning to worry.

He had given Kojima a fake home address and a special cell phone number. He e-mailed. He called. Nothing.

Finally, he saw his chance. Trolling the chat rooms of insectnet.com, he noticed other dealers complaining about Kojima. Newcomer jumped in. He could vouch for “Yoshi,” he wrote. He was working with him and could get anything from his collection.

Dealers contacted Newcomer immediately. Proudly, Newcomer e-mailed Kojima, telling him he’d found new customers and asking for specimens.

But instead of being pleased, Kojima got mad. He berated Newcomer, warning him not to trust people he had not developed a relationship with. They could be undercover agents, Kojima said.

It would be seven months before Kojima resumed contact.

Eventually Newcomer decided to set up a decoy eBay account. He would use butterfly photographs from the disc Kojima had given him and rig auctions so that the specimens would go for exorbitant prices to other undercover officers. He would prove to Kojima, once and for all, that he was serious about making money in the butterfly business.

Once again the plan backfired.

Kojima wrote angry notes to Newcomer accusing him of stealing his photographs.

“Shame on you,” Kojima wrote in an e-mail on June 17, 2004. “Comming soon big trable. Not your friend, Yoshi.”

Next, the local game warden’s office called and told Newcomer about a tip it had received from a Japanese insect dealer who mistakenly thought he was contacting Fish and Wildlife.

Newcomer listened, stunned.

Kojima had turned him in.

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