Rover Over and Out: French campaigners urge Ireland to track down 'Dead Zoo' rhino horn smugglers
Rover Over and Out: French campaigners urge Ireland to track down 'Dead
Zoo' rhino horn smugglers
Eamon Dillon, Sunday World
September 19, 2021
See link
https://www.sundayworld.com/news/french-campaigners-urge-ireland-to-track-down-dead-zoo-rhino-horn-smugglers-40864415.html
for photos.
French campaigners have urged the Irish government to help track down and
arrest two Irish men sentenced to prison for rhino smuggling.
Tom Greene (33) and Richard O’Riley (35), described as brothers, were both
given prison sentences in their absence at a criminal court in Rennes.
However, these are aliases used by the men, who are related to others who
have been previously imprisoned in the UK and US for their roles in rhino
horn smuggling, according to Sunday World sources.
Both men are related to Richard ‘Kerry’ O’Brien. Some members of his family
have been targeted by law enforcement in a number of countries.
It emerged during the three-day hearing in France that police used phone
taps and surveillance to nab four Rathkeale Rovers involved in a €13
million rhino horn and elephant ivory smuggling racket.
Two other Irish men named in the French court proceedings, Edward Gammel
(33) and Daniel McCarthy (29), were also convicted and given suspended
sentences.
Customs fines of up to €200,000 were also imposed on each of the men.
Now Charlotte Nithart, president of the Robin des Bois, an organisation
that campaigns against trafficking endangered species, wants the
authorities to follow up on the arrest warrants for Greene and
O’Riley. Arrest warrants have been issued for them and we hope that the
Irish authorities will cooperate as they did with the US authorities in the
case of John Slattery, ex-John Flynn,” she said.
Slattery, from Rathkeale, had previously been arrested in France where he
used the name Flynn, before returning to Ireland from where he was
extradited to the United States for rhino horn trafficking. He has since
served his time and returned to Ireland in August last year.
In the most recent case, the four men from Rathkeale were caught with a
very large rhino horn weighing 14.7 kilos which Nithart hopes can be traced
back to its origin. “In our opinion, this trial is exceptional at the
European level, with trafficking in horn and ivory and individuals from
several continents,” she said.
The case highlights how Ireland’s Dead Zoo was still at work chasing
profits despite its leading figures being jailed in the UK in 2016.
In the Rennes court, Tom Greene was singled out as the leading figure in
the plot, which also saw four Franco-Chinese men convicted over the illegal
export scheme. He got a three-year sentence despite the public prosecutor
calling for a six-year term and referring to Greene as ‘a hunter without a
rifle’ and the gang’s ‘sales rep’.
French prosecutors started their investigation after a random motorway
traffic inspection by police in Poitiers in September 2015 led to the
discovery of several elephant tusks and €32,800 cash in a BMW. The
occupants of the car, who claimed they were antique dealers, were the four
Irish men with addresses in the UK and Ireland.
In May 2016, investigators from the National Judicial Customs Service
seized 14 raw ivory tusks of African origin and two carved tusks without
any documentation as to their legal origin at a warehouse in
Seine-Saint-Denis in north Paris.
On November 15, 2016, in a room of a B&B in Creil near Paris, Greene and
O’Riley were arrested again with a rhinoceros horn weighing 14.7kg. The
seizure took place close to a Chinese restaurant whose manager is one of
the other convicted men.
All four Irish men were convicted in their absence and warrants issued for
the arrests of Greene and O’Riley, who was sentenced to a year behind bars.
French police also discovered that ivory and rhino horn were being turned
into powder and flakes before being exported to Vietnam and China where
they are used in traditional medicine.
A Chinese businessman, David Ta (51), was given two years in prison for his
part in exporting the horns and tusks.
In the UK, the Dead Zoo gang was accused of stealing artefacts from
museums, including rhino horn objects, worth £57 million. Those convicted
included cousins Richard Sheridan and Richard ‘Kerry’ O’Brien Jr, who are
related to some of those convicted in France.