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hatrack

(59,587 posts)
Fri Feb 17, 2017, 09:14 AM Feb 2017

Beverly Hills Auction Exec & Reality "Star" Indicted For Rhino Horn Trafficking

An executive at a Beverly Hills gallery and auction house who briefly starred in a reality TV show has been charged with conspiring to facilitate the sale and exportation of 15 rhinoceros horns worth $2.4 million. Jacob Chait, the youngest son of the founder of I.M. Chait Gallery/Auctioneers, was charged in an indictment unsealed on Wednesday in Manhattan federal court with a single conspiracy count in connection with the wildlife trafficking scheme.

His indictment came after his older brother, Joseph Chait, was sentenced in June 2016 to one year in prison for conspiring to smuggle at least $1 million in animal products that included rhino horn and elephant ivory.

EDIT

Chait, of Los Angeles, served as the head of acquisitions at I.M. Chait, which was founded by his father, Isadore Chait. He was featured in a 2012 Discovery Channel reality television show focused on memorabilia sellers called "Final Offer."

According to the indictment, from 2008 to 2012, Chait and others acquired and traded rhino horns that they sold to foreign customers and helped the buyers export them without proper paperwork and by hiding them in luggage. The indictment said the scheme involved 15 horns worth $2.4 million, some of which were smuggled out of the country in connection with sales to buyers in China.

EDIT

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-crime-auction-rhino-idUSKBN15V2EK

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Beverly Hills Auction Exec & Reality "Star" Indicted For Rhino Horn Trafficking (Original Post) hatrack Feb 2017 OP
Fuck these people! longship Feb 2017 #1
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