USA Today has an interesting article on the case of Hisayoshi Kojima, a self proclaimed “Indiana Jones of Butterfly Smuggling”:

From Jamaica he could get the giant swallowtail Papilio homerus, whose velvety black and gold wings are depicted on the country’s $1,000 bank note.

From the Philippines he could get the Luzon peacock swallowtail or Papilio chikae.

And from Papua New Guinea he could get what many dealers had never even seen: the prized Queen Alexandra’s birdwing.

All are endangered, protected by international and U.S. wildlife laws. It is illegal to catch, kill or import them.

Kojima always found a way.

The article explains how an agent from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service went undercover to create a case against Kojima. Based on records of all of the species that was offered to the agent, the article states that the black market value of “everything, sold and offered, amounted to as much as $294,000.”

To learn more about this issue, please visit our Animal and Wildlife Trafficking page.