Massive smuggler jailed.

[Bushviper]

Look at this poor kid. He could have received 5 years! This is a bit extreme but I suppose the law is the law.

This is from the New Zealand Herald last month.

A teenager has been sent to prison for three months after smuggling two small snakes into the country in his pants.

Michael Luke Mullany, 19, is inside Auckland's Mt Eden Prison after a judge told him "anybody who brings snakes into this country can expect to go to jail".

The sentence at Auckland's North Shore District Court this month has been greeted as a hard example for anyone trying to beat the nation's border security. But the teen's family told the Herald on Sunday they were devastated he had been put in prison.

Mullany's dad, Jim, said: "I don't understand it. We're pretty disappointed about it."

Mullany was only 18 when he went on a holiday with his mother to Bangkok, where he bought the brown and cream mottled corn snakes at the Chatuchak Market. The snakes are not poisonous.

Court papers show that Mullany kept the snakes in a box in the hotel he and his mother were staying at - and he told her he had returned them before the trip home.

Instead, Mullany boarded the return flight to New Zealand with the snakes tucked into his rear trouser pockets.

"During the flight he sat on the snakes, careful not to squash them but to keep them warm," said the prosecution case.

He later told investigators he "just slouched on the seat". Mullany said he knew they ate mice, weren't dangerous and intended to do more research when he got home.

At the airport, Mullany filled out forms saying he was bringing nothing in that was banned, despite walking past a slew of signs and warnings.

Once back in the country, Mullany tried to set the snakes up at home in an aquarium, travelled with them to Tolaga Bay to visit his father and then decided he would sell the snakes on the internet. That proved his undoing.

He told investigators he "couldn't bring himself to kill them and didn't want to set them free because that would be stupid", court papers said.

His offer on a website for tropical fish enthusiasts alerted Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry staff who arranged a sting.

Mullany was promised $2200 for the snakes. Minutes after meeting the buyer and doing a deal, officials arrested him.

MAF enforcement director Jockey Jensen said the prison sentence was a warning to anyone bringing snakes in.

He said snakes posed a potential threat to the nation's environment. It was impossible to predict the eventual impact of any alien species introduced.

[MISA]

Ouch!
But like you say BV, the law is the law, where do you draw the line between simple "innocence" if I could call it that, and hard core smuggling?

Its seems the land of the long white cloud is home to a bunch of serious herp phobes! No wonder they have so many sheep

[Rob]

Its interesting that they take the illegal import of exotics more seriously than the illegal export of their indigenous.
3 guys recently got around 15 weeks of jailtime for trying to smuggle 16 or so Nautalis geckos out NZ and into Europe.
Bear in mind these geckos fetch almost R1 000 000 each in Europe. Yup, the amount of zeros is correct.

I feel for this kid but as it says, he had the chance to acknowledge possession of them.

[eyed_lizard]

Where can find some of those geckos....? (joke)

[Iggy]

Bear in mind they have no snake species, the escape of an exotic could have a massive impact on their environment.

[Jantus]

Considering no one except zoos are allowed to even have snakes in New Zealand it was a bit of a silly misake on his part. Poor oke!

[Fooble]

Would the corn snakes survive in New Zeland i doubt it, thats a bit rough IMO.

[Scavenger]

Shame man this is in the papers, as I'm in New Zealand at the moment. They very strict with their "Bio-Security" but having seen some of the damage other invaders are doing here I can understand why. A large majority of the native stuff is either very rare or extinct on the mainland. For example I've only seen one native bird species out in the city here in Auckland

[fredsmith]

Whew, poor guy. But that said, if you're prepared to do the crime, then so too should you be prepared to do the time if caught. The judge was at least lenient IMO though... Could have gotten worse.
Does NZ not allow people to keep snakes at all?

[JPWittstock]

Iggy,

One escaped hatchling corn snake will have absolutely no impact on their environment at all, ever.

JP

[Bushviper]

JP I think a number of escaped corn snakes could become a problem. Unlike SA they do not have much in the line of predators. If they do get to be established in even tiny area of natural habitat they can wipe out seriously rare geckos and skinks which are not hard wired to elude these types of predators.

I am sure they could look at allowing snakes like Chondropythons and Corallus species for example who will never survive if they do escape. Offer the budding herpers there some alternative!

[Microlepidotus]

An example of a huge problem,was is the Burms in the Evergades.

[JPWittstock]

BV,
We are not talking about a number of corn snakes, he had two hatchlings and the chances of both of them escaping and meeting one another when adult is near impossible.

Microlepidotus,
The Burmese "problem" is grossly exaggerated and is as a result of importers releasing animals they could not sell, not escaped animals that met up and mated. The Huge problem that you refer to was the hyping up of the incident to create public support of HR2811 by politicians.
Join this facebook group to get the real facts about the everglades burmese.
http://www.facebook.com/?ref=home#!/pag ... all&ref=ts

JP

[Microlepidotus]

Yes, that is what I am trying to say, that if lots (MILLIONS) of cornsnakes , whatever the case may be is realesed into the wild itcould result in a problem, like the burms.

[Hustler]

Microlepidotus I don't think you're getting the point that JP is trying to make. It isn't a 'million' corn snakes being refered to in the topic, it's 2 hatchlings. I highly doubt that he'd manage to fit that many corn snakes in his back trouser pocket.

Either way he did the crime so he should do the time. The sentence does seem a bit harsh though. 3 months is a rough sentence.