Taxidermist jailed after trading in rhino horn with ‘Chinese mafia’
Man who sold banned tiger skulls and whale teeth jailed for 56 weeks for offending a third time
Jack Hardy
A TAXIDERMIST who posed with stuffed exotic animals has been jailed for using his business as a front for trading illicit items such as rhino horns to the “Chinese mafia”.
Aaron Halstead was yesterday imprisoned for 56 weeks after flouting laws over trading in endangered species for a third time since 2011.
Operating under the guise of a legitimate taxidermy business, he sold and transported black rhino horns and obtained tiger skulls, sperm whale teeth, a rhino skull and elephant tusks for sale, Preston Crown Court heard.
The 29-year-old, of Burnley, Lancs, would routinely post pictures of himself on social media alongside animals he had legally taxidermied – including him roaring alongside the head of a tiger, riding a giraffe and even driving a car with a zebra in the back.
He had first been investigated and cautioned in 2011 for breaching the regulations surrounding endangered species when he was a student who operated a taxidermy business.
Following the caution, he had the benefit of guidance from a police officer with more than 20 years’ experience in wildlife crime who explained to him the legislation. But Halstead went on to ignore the advice and was later jailed for 24 weeks in 2015 after he admitted purchasing sperm whale teeth, a cheetah skull and a dolphin skull, and offered to sell a snowy owl without a permit.
Yesterday, he received another term of imprisonment after pleading guilty to nine similar breaches of the control of trade in endangered species regulations between September 2017 and January 2018.
Halstead was said by the Crown to have used his legitimate business as “a vehicle for his illicit trading”, arranging deals through his business website, as well as social media platforms.
Adrian Farrow, prosecuting, told the court: “He was intimately familiar with the legislation and had been provided with specific guidance in relation to it.
“Against that background, the circumstances of the offences for which he now falls to be sentenced can be characterised as deliberate and calculated actions driven by the considerable financial gains which can be made in such trade.”
Outlining the case, Mr Farrow said the defendant reassured a supplier in a Whatsapp conversation he did not need to be “afraid of Customs” in shipping 10 tiger skulls worth €9,000 (£8,120) from the Netherlands.
Halstead boasted: “It will be fine ... I’ve never had anything stopped. Only from out of the EU.” In another Whatsapp chat Halstead arranged a trip to Calais, to sell black rhino horns for €70,000 to a “Chinese rich” client after he had removed the horns from a head he had lawfully bought at an auction. The defendant wrote to an intermediary: “I must be mad. I’m in France meeting the Chinese mafia.”
Mark Stuart, defending, said Halstead, a qualified swimming instructor, had a “lifelong interest” in taxidermy.
‘This is no hapless amateur who has offended by stumbling into an area of legislation he was not aware of ’
Passing sentence, Judge Robert Altham said: “This was brazen, persistent, well-organised criminality.
“This is no hapless amateur who has offended by stumbling into an area of legislation he was not aware of.”
Andy Mcwilliam, of the National Wildlife Crime Unit, said: “He knows that he is feeding a demand and that his illicit trading may have a direct impact on the survival of some of the world’s most threatened species.”