Craigslist seller tries peddling 28-inch elephant tusk to undercover agents, feds say
A 60-year-old man in Virginia pleaded guilty Tuesday to selling ivory from endangered animals online in violation of federal conservation laws.
Gary L. Cooper used Craigslist and eBay to hawk elephant tusks, figurines and whale teeth for thousands of dollars to willing buyers across the country, prosecutors in the Eastern District of Virginia said in a news release. He pleaded guilty to the unlawful sale of endangered species in violation of the Endangered Species Act of 1973.
Under the terms of the plea agreement, prosecutors said Cooper agreed to give up 136 pieces of ivory still in his possession.
Cooper faces up to one year in prison when he’s sentenced on Aug. 31.
According to a statement of facts filed with his plea agreement, agents with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service found Cooper through a New York Craigslist advertisement in 2015. At the time, prosecutors said, he had listed about 92 ivory carvings for sale.
Cooper told an undercover agent posing as a potential buyer that he was helping an elderly couple sell their ivory collection to pay for medical expenses, the government said in court documents.
“In reality, he was regularly buying ivory online and flipping the pieces for profit,” prosecutors said.
Three years later in 2018, Fish and Wildlife agents saw a Craigslist advertisement for two 28-inch raw elephant tusks being sold out of Virginia. According to court filings, the asking price was $6,500.
An undercover agent reached out to the seller, determined to be Cooper, and began negotiating a sale.
In those exchanges, prosecutors said, Cooper noted he was helping an elderly couple who kept notes about the pieces they bought and what they paid. He said many of the pieces were bought decades ago and that the estate owners no longer had the appraisal paperwork.
“These rare ivories were brought here for centuries legally by tourists and military men and women without papers or any type of documentation so that’s just the situation when buying 90 percent of these antique ivories,” he reportedly wrote in an email to the agent.
The government said Cooper made statements on recorded phone calls with the undercover agents that seemed to indicate he understood what he was doing was illegal.
From September 2018 to early 2020, prosecutors said Cooper sold or tried to sell “no less than 50 pieces of elephant ivory, with a total market value between $40,000 and $95,000” to undercover agents.
The first sale included a carved ivory apple and a carved ivory Buddha statue for $1,150 in November 2018. The package was reportedly shipped with Cooper’s name and home address handwritten on the shipping label, prosecutors said.
In February 2019, court documents state, Cooper sold a carved ivory book for $550 and a carved ivory village scene for $250 to the undercover agent.
A third undercover agent bought a carved ivory bridge for $875 and carved ivory vases for $430 from Cooper in January 2020, prosecutors said.
A forensic scientist with U.S. Fish and Wildlife later confirmed all of the items they intercepted were made from “genuine elephant ivory.”
