Christy’s frenetic approach-bouncing from Mike’s smuggling to young Ray catching snakes to the neglect of wildlife crime prosecution-is disorienting in what could have been a fascinating tale. After Bepler’s years of surveillance and hard work, Van Nostrand was sentenced to eight months in prison, his export license revoked, and Strictly Reptiles was forced to pay $250,000 in fines to a wildlife fund.

In the early 1990s, Fish and Wildlife Services agent Chip Bepler set his sights on Van Nostrand. He exploited loopholes in the international treaty on endangered-species trade and paid off corrupt officials. Van Nostrand imported reptiles of all shapes and sizes, usually concealed in the suitcases or clothing of his mules, and sold them to collectors and pet stores.

Mike Van Nostrand inherited Strictly Reptiles, an import-export business in Florida, from his father, Ray, turning it into a multimillion-dollar smuggling operation. An interview with author Bryan Christy By Rhett Ayers Butler ApPangolin in Cambodia Since his breakthrough book, The Lizard King, and his National Geographic feature on The Kingpin, Bryan Christy has established himself as one of the best-known wildlife crime writers. Freelance writer Christy’s debut is an enthusiastic but scattered chronicle of the rise and fall of a lizard kingpin and the federal agent who pursued him. Putnam, 27 (368p) ISBN 978-2-0 Christy ( The Lizard King: The True Crimes and Passions of the World’s Greatest Reptile Smugglers) makes. Albino pythons, endangered lizards and other reptiles are the currency of an underworld as dangerous and lucrative as the drug trade.

The lizard king bryan christy