The lucrative underground trade in rhinoceros horns earned Canadian resident Xiao Ju Guan some ill-gotten gains.
Now, it’s going to cost the 39-year-old antiques dealer from British Columbia 30 months in a U.S. prison.
On Wednesday, New York-based U.S. District Judge Laura Taylor Swain sentenced the man also known as Tony Guan.
Guan was arrested in March 2014, as part of “Operation Crash,” a nationwide crackdown on the illegal trafficking in rhinoceros horns. He was seized in the United States, after being lured to this country by undercover special agents from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service who had baited the hook with the offer of two endangered black rhinoceros horns.
Guan agreed to pay $45,000 for the two rhino horns, according to a Justice Department sentencing memo.
“The illegal trade in rhinoceros horns is the number one threat to many populations of African rhinos, and is driving the species towards extinction,” Fish and Wildlife Service Director Dan Ashe said in a statement. “The wholesale slaughter of these magnificent animals in the wild is taking place so a few callous individuals can line their own pockets.”
The primarily Asian demand for rhino horns stems, reportedly, from the putative health benefits they provide. Last year, according to the Justice Department, a record 1,215 rhinoceros were poached in South Africa alone.