Cambodia to Seek Justice for Its Arrested Officials
AKP Phnom Penh, November 17, 2022 --

The Royal Government of Cambodia (RGC) will do its best to seek justice for its officials arrested in transit in the U.S. to attend CITES Convention Meeting in Panama, while assuring that rules and regulations as well as international conventions will be respected.

"The Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries (MAFF) and the RGC will make our utmost efforts in order to seek justice for our officials, especially those on official duty representing the country according to international conventions," affirmed MAFF in a press release AKP received this evening.

The MAFF is surprised and saddened to have learned from the media that Mr. Kry Masphal, Director of Wildlife and Biodiversity Department, had been arrested at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York, United States of America, whilst in transit to attend the meeting of the Convention of International Trade of Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) in Panama, the release pointed out.

According to the announcement on the website of the U.S. Justice Department, he and the head of Forestry Administration have been indicted for alleged conspiracy to smuggle crab eating monkeys into the USA.

"We uphold CITES convention's principles and laws. It is a big irony that he, who was going to attend an official meeting at the United Nations forum to protect the endangered species of wild fauna and flora, has been arrested under such alleged conspiracy, while both Cambodia and the USA, maintain good diplomatic relations," MAFF said.

The crab-eating monkeys are commonly scattered all over Cambodia, in the wilderness and suburban and urban areas including Wat Phnom tourist site in Phnom Penh, it said.

Since 2005, the source explained, the monkeys have been farmed in Cambodia and are exported for pharmaceutical research for new medicines and vaccines as well as cosmetic products. They are not caught from the wilderness and smuggled out, but farmed in decent manners with respect to good hygiene and health standards so as to preserve their gene pool. As obliged by CITES convention and applicable laws, only next generation of monkeys are exported.

Cambodian CITES management authority has allowed their exports based on both domestic and international laws and regulations, said MAFF, adding that as for their imports into the U.S., the import companies shall be responsible for complying with all U.S. procedures.
By C. Nika
- AKP

more details here:

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/crime/ca ... r-AA14eCHL

and here:

https://www.rfa.org/english/news/cambod ... 20research.

When the US start arresting Cambodian government officials for monkey smuggling, while in transit, there must be a few worried faces in the upper echelons wondering what else is currently under seal.

The main man they arrested, "Kry Masphal, the deputy director of the Cambodian agency responsible for protecting wildlife", was kept off the original indictment until shortly before he travelled:

In June, U.S. prosecutors filed a sealed indictment against Keo, Lau and five of his employees [of Vanny Bio Research (Cambodia) Corp. Ltd], but made no mention of Kry. Kry’s name was added to a superseding indictment filed on Nov. 3, less than two weeks prior to his arrest in New York.

It sounds like they discovered he was arriving and then sprung the trap. He must feel like one of his monkeys! How ironic.

Radio free Asia wrote: In total, the indictment alleges that 2,634 wild-caught macaques with a declared value of $9.3 million were illegally brought into the U.S. 

That's quite a lucrative business, over 3,500$ per monkey.

Pay 10$ a head to the farmers and pocket a substantial amount.

Is it possible he was circumventing official channels to pocket some tea money?
Export a few officially and a few *unofficially*??

If the allegations are true then it's remarkable how dumb they were to transit through the USA

Looks like the new era of cooperation that Joey B and H.E ushered in this week is off to a flying start!

It was an extremely well-organized international traffic. More details:

Masphal Kry, the deputy director of Wildlife and Biodiversity in Cambodia's Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, was arrested Wednesday at John F. Kennedy International Airport.

Kry, 46, was traveling to Panama to attend an international meeting on regulating trade in endangered species, said a U.S. official on the condition of anonymity to discuss the ongoing investigation.

Omaliss Keo, 58, director general of the Southeast Asian country's Forestry Administration is also charged in the eight-count indictment, along with the six Vanny employees. Officials didn't say whether anyone besides Kry had been taken into custody. They each face up to 145 years in prison.

"The macaque is already recognized as an endangered species by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature," U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Florida Juan Antonio Gonzalez said in a statement. "The practice of illegally taking them from their habitat to end up in a lab is something we need to stop. Greed should never come before responsible conservation."

According to the indictment, Vanny Resources Holdings founder and owner James Man Sang Lau, 64, and Vanny Resources Holdings general manager Dickson Lau, 29, operating from Hong Kong, owned and managed several corporations that conspired with black market collectors and officials in Cambodia to acquire wild macaques and export them to the U.S., falsely labelled as captive bred.

The macaques were taken from national parks and other protected areas in Cambodia to breeding facilities where they were provided false export permits, officials said. Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries officials received cash payments of $220 each in exchange for a collection quota of 3,000 "unofficial" monkeys.

https://www.cbsnews.com/newyork/news/ca ... smuggling/

This has been going on for 15 years at least. Why farm
them when they are so easy to acquire illegally. Looks like the boys will be in the monkey house for some time.

willyhilly wrote: ↑Fri Nov 18, 2022 5:41 pm This has been going on for 15 years at least. Why farm them when they are so easy to acquire illegally. Looks like the boys will be in the monkey house for some time.

Good job that they got busted at last then.

The Crab-eating Macaque

As of October this year, 2022, there are 6 farms in various regions of Cambodia which are breeding the crab-eating macaque (Macaca fascicularis), also known as the long-tailed macaque, and referred to as the cynomolgus monkey in laboratories. The monkeys are bred in order to be sold to foreign laboratories for medical experiments.
In 2014, a total of 21,768 crab-eating macaques were imported in the United States to be used in experimentation.Source: wikipedia

Conservation status

The crab-eating macaque has the third-largest range of any primate species, behind only humans and rhesus macaques. The IUCN Red List categorizes the species as endangered, and CITES lists them as Appendix II ("not necessarily threatened with extinction", in which trade must be controlled to avoid use incompatible with their survival).[1]
Its IUCN status was changed from Least Concern in 2020 as a result of declining population resulting from hunting and troublesome interactions with humans, despite its wide range and ability to adapt to different habitats.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crab-eating_macaque