He Once Trafficked in Rare Birds. Now, He Tells How It's Done.

📆 11/28/2020 4:30 PM
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WEIDEN AN DER MARCH, Austria -- On a humid evening at the airport in Fortaleza, in northern Brazil, Johann Zillinger, a wildlife trafficker, was keeping a close eye on his new hire. He had recruited the 24-year-old farmhand as a smuggler a few days earlier, promising him a free trip to Europe and $2,000 in cash.But the young man was sweating profusely, and Zillinger worried that he might raise suspicions. At length, he decided to go ahead. 'I gave him two lines of coke and said, 'Let's go.' 'Sign up for The Morning newsletter from the New York TimesZillinger himself had no need of drugs. Always dressed like a businessman, he had sauntered through security and passport checks scores of times, the thousands of exotic birds he was trafficking undetected.But on that evening in 2002, customs agents in Fortaleza, acting on a tip, found 47 eggs of endangered parrots stuffed in nylon stockings and wrapped around the two men's midsections. The agents also discovered 20 live birds in the bag of a third accomplice.A photo in a local newspaper shows the young hire covering his face. Zillinger stares straight into the camera. In the accompanying article, Interpol agents describe him as one of the world's biggest wildlife traffickers, a wiry Austrian who, on that day alone, admitted to smuggling wildlife worth more than $350,000.The multibillion-dollar wildlife trade is the primary reason for species extinction, according to a study by U.S. and British scientists. But Zillinger said that for him, it was never about the money. Rather, he wanted to breed some of the world's most elusive birds. The birds are an addiction, 'like smoking, like drinking coffee or alcohol,' he said.His drive was undeterred by the four months he spent in a rural Brazilian jail cell after his arrest, his amenities reduced to a bucket. He returned to the infamous trade and said he had stopped only recently and was now busying himself with breeding rare species and building a zoo.The first time we met at hi

Johann Zillinger transports one of his African spurred tortoises among his newly built aviaries at his home in Weiden an der March, Austria, Sept. 10, 2020.

A photo in a local newspaper shows the young hire covering his face. Zillinger stares straight into the camera. In the accompanying article, Interpol agents describe him as one of the world’s biggest wildlife traffickers, a wiry Austrian who, on that day alone, admitted to smuggling wildlife worth more than $350,000.

But Zillinger’s cockatoos were a match. The moment the first chick broke through its shell, he was hooked. “It was like winning the lottery,” he said, beaming. In the early years, Zillinger was able to get the birds through customs in Brazil by greasing some palms. Over time, though, airport officials’ demands rose too high, Zillinger said, and he focused on eggs. Strapped to his body, the eggs would keep warm crossing the ocean to Portugal, where he would transfer them from human to conventional incubator. The hardest part, he said, was not cracking them. “That’s the 10% we lost, but other than that, it was foolproof.

Zillinger and other traffickers found that they could obtain a valid CITES document to disguise smuggled animals as captive-bred. They simply needed to claim that they were, and, after all but the most incredible claims, officials would issue paperwork that declared wild, trafficked birds to be born in captivity. CITES officials have admitted that such documents were wrongfully issued.

Almost no risk, that is. Five years ago, on a two-lane highway in Portugal, Zillinger was pulled over for what appeared to be a random traffic stop but was in fact the climax of a monthslong investigation.

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