Original subtitles

I've always been like the Mick Jagger of the reptile industry.

I sold all kinds of illegal stuff.

Crocodile, snakes, tarantulas.

My holy grail was the king cobra.

I elected to take the snake on the plane.

Were there some apprehension?

Yes.

Deadly venomous, and a bite means almost sure death.

There was no question I made a lot of bad decisions.

Did you pack a King Cobra in your luggage?

But the worst was yet to come.

I honestly thought I was going to die.

For years and years, Tom Crutchfield was the big dog in the reptile trade in the

United States.

Suspect has been spotted with a cage in his hand.

It was critical that we get Tom out of circulation and into our custody.

My customers loved the rare stuff that was illegal. They knew it was illegal,

and they stood in line to buy it.

Down by in second position.

But that fateful day, I knew I was taking a great risk.

This is exactly what we've been looking for.

Now! Move it now!

Now! Now!

And I thought, oh.

I was living in Fort Myers, Florida.

Life was pretty good for me at that point.

I was newly married.

Only one thing went wrong with the whole picture, though, and that was I really

hated my job.

I was working for a large department store that was all over the U .S.

It was a really good -paying job.

But this is not what I want to do with my life.

The first thing I did when I got home, of course, was always go work with my

reptiles, which was really my passion.

I would always clean the cages and look at the animals, and it gave me a great

deal of pleasure and satisfaction to do so.

And somehow I had to figure a way to be able to live my life the way that I

wanted to live it.

At an animal dealers in Miami, two friends of mine had a lot of bimini boa.

It was a wonderful snake.

They told me that they could simply go to the Bahamas and catch anything, and

then they could just bring it back into the U .S.

I said, basically, just put them in your suitcase, take them back.

I asked them, and he said, you sure?

And they said they've never ever had anything confiscated.

And if someone found them, all you had to do was tell them they were personal

pets. He said, even though the animals required permits, no one really cared.

I decided I wanted to see if we could catch some of those beautiful boas for

myself.

I had a little bit of trepidation that it might be more of a problem than they

said. I'm thinking of this giant law that made all this publicity in every

newspaper in the world that was going to regulate all wildlife.

It was hard to believe that no one was enforcing it.

All that were in my mind was what one of these would look like actually in

nature, you know, in the sunlight.

I wanted to do it.

And that was it.

We were going to South Beeman.

For me, it was a huge, huge event.

It was exciting.

This was my very first international trip.

A friend of mine, who also collected reptiles, heard that we were planning to

go. We said, okay.

And he went with us.

Now, 50 yards in the woods is this old deserted building, and inside that

building was a place I was told that Boas could be found.

I proceed to the building like a Tasmanian devil because I want to catch

snake immediately.

And I'm tearing it apart, trying to look for snakes, and all the raptors down in

the holes.

All of a sudden...

Penny said, so I tell Penny she needs to go to the restroom wherever she can

find a place.

I kept looking for the boas, shining lights and holes, and I hear Penny

Tom, Tom, come here.

When she first started calling me, it was irritating me.

I go, I don't have time for that. Just go ahead. Any place is all right to go

the bathroom. She goes, no, no, I already went. But she said, where I

said, it's a snake.

So I took off as fast as I could, wanting to try to get to the spot where

was.

And when I got there, she had this beautiful four, four and a half foot

bimini boa.

Isn't that beautiful?

Unbelievable.

Look at that.

I took the snake and my hands literally shook holding it, even though I had seen

the snakes before.

It was my very first wild one.

It was a remarkable sight.

It made me very, very happy.

We caught a snake the first 20 minutes we were there.

And I thought, well, wow, if we caught one this quick, we're probably going to

find a lot of them.

If I turned over one rock, I probably turned over metric tons of rocks looking

for snakes.

But unfortunately, we didn't find any more. That was the only snake.

But we started hearing this click, click, click, click, click, you know,

over the building.

Whoa.

It sounded like a little toes.

Click, click, click, click, click.

And it was tarantulas, lots of them.

They were on the floor, on the walls, everywhere looking for food.

And my friend wasn't fortunate enough to find any snakes.

So he thought he'd catch tarantulas.

He caught six or seven of the biggest females.

As we were preparing to go back to Miami, we packed the steak in our bag,

know, with clothes around it, on top of it.

And my friend put the tarantulas in his bag the same way we did ours, with

clothes to keep them cushioned.

No one would see anything. We wouldn't open our bags, and they would just wave

us through.

That was my hope.

When we got to the customs shack, there were these two sort of really bored

customs officers, like laying around, if you will.

And now, I was terrified.

I didn't know what to expect.

You know, I mean, There I was smuggling illegally.

Oh.

And that was it.

So we get on the plane.

Can I help you with your bag, sir?

What? Both of us were nervous. I mean, I can never forget the snake is in the

bag.

Your bag.

Oh, no, no. It's okay.

Thank you.

And as we're coming in, I still had some trepidation about what would happen at

U .S. Customs.

I'd never done it before, so I didn't know what to expect.

We disembarked the plane along with the other passengers.

They have United States Customs agents.

It's not like in BME.

These guys are real serious.

They're looking at things a little more serious, I'm thinking, than the people

in the Bahamas were.

Still, you have to think that in the back of your mind, is someone going to

something? Is there going to be a problem?

My friend said, I'll go first.

Everything seems pretty smooth until the guy says,

Excuse me, sir.

Can I look at your back, please?

Can I look at your back, please?

I thought.

This is not good.

When he opened the suitcase, he sees a bag.

When he picked the bag up, I thought, holy... What is this?

Nothing much.

Because I knew there were spiders in the bag, and I knew that they're not going

to like the tarantulas.

So the customs guy decided to open the bag.

And that's when I did like that, looked at Penny. She looked at me, and we're

like, oh.

He sticks his hand in.

I was feeling around.

And then, pow!

And I thought, oh, God.

It's absolutely the worst thing that could happen.

The customs guy looking at the blood, and he's looking at my friend.

He didn't say anything for probably about five or ten seconds.

It's like he can't believe that his hand is bleeding from sticking it in the

back. He just doesn't believe it.

And we're going, what the hell is going to happen?

For whatever reason, he says,

Do you have something sharp in your back?

No. And a spider is crawling right up with the legs almost to the top.

All I could see was the whites of his eyes.

And he passes out.

Bam.

So at that point, every single customs guy in that place came running over.

And they're looking at my friend. I mean, they were not nice looks.

And I thought, oh, God.

Some of them still didn't really understand what had bit him.

And my friend's trying to tell them that the spider's not deadly. It's okay.

It's all right. Just a spider. It's not going to kill you.

Immediately, one of the guys stomps the spider.

And I was looking at Penny, and we still had the snake in the bag, and I sort of

elbowed her, and I go, let's go outside, nobody's watching.

We took our bag and the snake, and she and I just nonchalantly walked out,

looking back, never looking at anybody, because you don't want to attract

attention.

And we walked out the building without clearing customs.

It was a huge relief.

but I was a little bit worried about my friend still.

Really, if you think about it, with him it was kind of serious. You got a guy in

customs who works for the United States government.

He got bit with a spider that was brought back illegally.

He's passed out.

I have no idea of the man's condition.

And we're all just thinking about that, and then we saw my friend come walking

out.

And... He had the empty bag in his hand.

He walks up to us, and I look at the bag, and I go, where are the spiders? He

goes, he flushed them down the toilet.

I said, what are they going to do to you? He goes, nothing, but they told me

never, never, never do this again.

I said, all righty now.

That was the point where I figured, you know, I'm going to do this a lot.

I'm thinking that was easy and those beautiful snakes were worth about $50

in the U .S.

I thought I could do it as a living.

My first trips were to the Caribbean, Bimini and to Eleuther Island in the

Bahamas.

At that point, the money wasn't the hundreds or thousands of dollars.

And a lot of my trips financed other trips.

And all this time, we weren't getting permits for anything. We were just going

through customs.

And if they said, what are these for?

I said, they're for pets.

And he said, go on through.

So it was like carte blanche permission, if you will, to do whatever you wanted.

So we decided on opening up a reptile business.

I sold them all kinds of illegal stuff.

I sold crocodiles, snakes, tarantulas.

And the rarer animals I got, the more business I seemed to have.

I think the first year we did $200 ,000 maybe.

It just got bigger and bigger and bigger.

And as I had more money, I went to more exotic places.

And I caught more and more exotic reptiles.

But my holy grail was the king cobra.

The king cobra is the longest venomous snake in the world.

When they stand up and spread a hood, their head can be five feet off the

ground. and they can be looking at you eye to eye, which is truly an

extraordinary thing to see and a frightening thing to see if you're not

expecting it or used to it.

One of the most impressive reptiles certainly in the world, and I had a deep

abiding passion to be able to catch one in the wild.

So we make Chiang Mai our base in an area called the Golden Triangle.

Now, Golden Triangle is a dangerous place.

Most of the world's opium that's used to make heroin and other illegal drugs was

grown up there.

There are huge narcotic warlords as powerful as a tie -arm.

And, I mean, they would have real military black battles.

We drove probably half a day, first on a paved road.

Then on some really bad dirt roads, and then the roads stopped.

I was super excited.

The only thing that we could see was like a little trail.

Actually, it looked like an elephant trail.

And we went down that trail miles and miles and miles into the jungle.

So we kept walking and walking and walking.

And all of a sudden, the guide made a sound, something like this. And he

running.

My first thought was, what in the hell did he see?

Because if he saw a tiger, I might want to do the same thing and run.

I saw the movement in the underbrush, and I could see the last half of a

and I knew immediately it was a king cobra rapidly crawling away.

So I ran up and grabbed the king cobra by the tail.

Now, this was a tough situation.

I had a huge adrenaline rush because you realize that you don't know what's

going to happen.

It's deadly venomous, and a bite means almost sure death.

By understanding the snake's abilities, you can actually control what the snake

does, in my experience.

If I were to do my hand like this, the king cobra will go like this and follow

it.

He'll simply turn and face me the whole time because he's facing what he

considers something that's potentially dangerous to him.

You cannot take your eyes off the snake because to take your eyes off of it even

for a second can mean that you're bitten.

I made him strike at me again and again and again to get more tired until

I could pin his head down and grab it behind the neck.

You know, I was ecstatic about catching a king cobra. I mean, it's a lifelong

dream come true.

The king cobra could have easily been shipped from Thailand, but it was so

valuable to me. I want to make sure nothing happened to the snake.

So I elected to put the snake in the suitcase and then take it back on the

plane.

Tom, no way.

And that was Penny's biggest concern.

Someone might open your suitcase, grab the bag, and then be killed by a king

cobra.

But I elected to risk it anyway.

At that point, I had decided to put the king cobra in the suitcase.

But we would put it in another bag to make it even more secure, and they put

those bags inside of a cardboard box that would fit inside the suitcase, so

someone touched it, it can't fight through the box, so there's no problem.

Is that ready with you, sir?

Penny also found some more animals.

She found some boa and a rare monitor.

She put those in little camera cases.

And we packed them in our hand luggage, and we drove to the airport.

The airport in Bangkok.

Were there some apprehension?

Yes.

But you can't think about things like that if you're a good smuggler.

If you're having to go through customs with the King Cobra.

You simply walk up there as a regular customer.

And you don't act odd.

You don't sweat.

You don't jump around.

Because you'll get caught.

That's the bottom line. If you don't have the balls to do it, don't do it.

And that was it.

Next

stop,

United States of America, Miami, Florida.

I knew I was taking a great risk.

So once we landed at Miami International Airport, we're all unbuckling and

everybody on the plane is getting ready to disembark.

And there was an announcement.

Would Tom and Penny Crushfield report to the front of the plane, please?

Well, I looked at Penny, and she looked at me, and she goes, I said, it has to

be that.

I started to worry about someone being accidentally bit by the snake.

remain seated.

Tom and Penny Crestfield, could you identify yourselves and make your way to

front of the plane, please?

I thought, oh, God.

And at this point, I could see the contingency of U .S. Space and Wildlife

Service agents.

But you can imagine all this stuff going through your head.

We walked to the front of the plane with everybody staring at us, of course, so

it was kind of embarrassing.

There's no great plans hatching in your mind.

And now I'm starting to think, well, I'm screwed now.

You're a cop. That's it. You've got to go and see what the deal is.

I was terrified.

We're trying not to act afraid or show any feelings.

but I knew that they had probably found the King Cobra, probably.

That's the only thing I could think of.

At that point, we were scared, but I knew it was a really big deal.

Bags on the table, please.

Customs guy looking at me, and probably speaks up.

Mr. Crutchfield.

Did you pack a King Cobra in your luggage?

My heart sank.

When he said that, my heart absolutely sank.

Where's my suitcase?

In Amsterdam.

We had a stopover in Amsterdam where we changed planes, and that's where the

luggage would have to change planes to to go to the United States.

At that point, I began to worry about someone being accidentally bit by the

snake.

A friend of mine was bitten by a King Cobra.

And he died in 11 minutes with paramedics there. There was nothing they

do.

I said, how did they know there was even a snake in there?

The drug dogs, they smelled the snake in the box.

It was a huge relief that no one was bitten or hurt in some way. But then

go.

We're going to need to see what else you're carrying with you.

I go, oh, good.

I'm standing there looking at Penny.

And both of us were nervous because we had smuggled a few other things, too.

Some rare boas and a rare monitor that Penny had put in little camera cases.

They started to go through everything.

They finally got around to Penny's purse.

I thought, holy crap.

At this point, one of the agents looks down at the bag, and then...

Oh, God.

And I'm thinking about what's going to happen.

Nothing here.

And that was it.

They didn't find anything.

Customs in Holland are going to keep the snake.

You're lucky we didn't catch you here in America.

And of course I'm smiling like hell because the idiots, I've smarted them

completely.

Moron.

I thought they were just so stupid in those days.

Tom Crutchfield developed a persona of being someone who, for the most part,

thought he was better than you are, knew more things than you knew.

untouchable, couldn't be caught.

I was part of a special task force whose job it was to identify and pursue the

biggest players in these smuggling operations.

It was critical to tie Tom to these smuggled reptiles.

We knew there were a group of German smugglers bringing tree boas and ground

boas into the United States.

We needed to find a way to link those Germans with Tom Crutchfield.

At this point, we were doing well over a million dollars a year.

I was certainly one of the biggest reptile dealers in the country, if not

biggest.

Hi, Tom Crutchfield.

I was the guy that everybody talked about.

You want some Madagascan tree bones.

Well, you do know they're a restricted species.

But after the Cobra incident, I decided more and more it wasn't really worth

trying to bring stuff myself back.

I decided that it would be much safer if I were going to smuggle something to do

it in a completely different way where I personally wasn't involved at all.

Hello, Wolfgang.

Tom Crutchfield here.

It would be much safer buying stuff like that that other people brought into the

U .S.

Yeah, listen, I have a proposition for you.

I went to meet a German that I knew called Wolfgang Cloy.

He was another reptile smuggler.

Suspect has been spotted.

A cage in your hand.

I went and set up surveillance.

It was critical that we establish a positive link between the smuggled

Wolfgang Chloe, and Tom Crutchfield's business.

Okay, move into position.

So listen, I found a buyer that's looking for Madagascan tree bones.

Okay. Wolfgang had animals I wanted, so we did a trade.

Down by in second position.

A few of my WOMAs were probably eight or ten of his Madagascan freeboas, which

he brought into the U .S. without permits.

Yeah? You got a deal, man.

Have a look.

This was tremendous.

It was exactly what we'd been looking for.

It directly tied Tom Crutchfield into the smuggling operation, linked him to

German team.

I was ecstatic.

Okay, we're set.

Ready to move in? I was extremely pleased. I had

the Madagascan tree boas.

But then all of a sudden he said, Hey, I think there's someone looking at you

with binoculars.

And I go, What?

Don't look. Don't look.

Get out of here.

Now, move in, now, now, now.

They all rushed in like they're expecting gunfire exchange.

And I thought, oh.

Our team moved in and arrested Wolfgang Cloy.

We already had probably enough information to convict Tom for the

the reptiles, but what we really needed was to build a bigger case against him.

Tom Crutchfield, I've got a warrant to search your business.

Let's go.

Well, at this point, we're not liking each other a whole lot.

We were looking for key bits of information.

And it actually amazes me how some of these crooks keep documents that

actually show their illegal activities.

Hey!

When you looked at the volume of the smuggled animals, they were easily worth

hundreds of thousands of dollars.

His goose was cooked.

He certainly was going to jail.

for a long time.

At the end, I said to him, I know for a fact we'll be seeing each other in court

before long.

I knew there was going to be more trouble.

I thought if we stayed, certainly that I would be indicted.

So I decided to pack up everything and leave the U .S. and headed to Belize.

We already had a fair amount of money in cash, so we decided on opening up a car

rental business and start a new life in Belize.

Life was pretty good for me at that point.

I found my problems were finished.

We were safe.

Hello, Nurse Meyer, Fish and Wildlife.

At first I was kind of shocked.

Really?

But then I realized...

This was probably the stupidest thing that he could have done.

Forget the wildlife smuggling now. This guy has really taken it to the next

level.

We knew that we would not get him extradited for smuggling reptiles.

However, the type of crimes the Belize government

did not...

tolerate was fleeing from justice to avoid prosecution.

The plan was arrest Tom, put him

in jail, and hold him until we could get the Belize Justice Department to have

him expelled from the country.

Thank you very much.

I was almost in shock that it happened.

I'm like, what the hell?

What are you holding me for? I haven't broken any laws.

He says the U .S. is after the Belizean government to deport you.

Then I knew what the plan was immediately.

I didn't have time to talk to Penny.

I simply said, get an attorney and find out where I am and come see me.

And then they say, you're going to Hattieville Prison. I knew exactly where

was.

The last place that I probably wanted to go in Belize was Hattieville Prison.

The last place.

It's something right out of that movie, Midnight Express.

I mean, the place looks bad.

But the worst was yet to come.

They take me, and they put me in a cell with four other people.

They're sleeping on the floor on pieces of cardboard and covering themselves

with their clothes.

I mean, I'm in shock almost because it's so horrible.

There is no electricity.

There is no plumbing.

There are no toilets.

There is no running water in any of the cells.

And I go in there, and I'm thinking, like, five people in this cell?

And the one guy starts to reach for my bag.

I go, don't touch my bag, bro.

I said, don't do that.

He starts to reach for my bag again.

Again, I told him not to.

And then the guy did it again.

And I just grabbed his wrist.

And at that time, I just dropped down with my knees.

And I just popped the capsule in his elbow. He was so weak.

The guards came running over.

So they walked me over like 50 yards away probably, and they put me in a

They open it up, and there's one guy in that cell, just one guy.

And he had the most serious look on his face.

And he's got one of those metal beds, and he's got like foam rubber on top of

it. And there's another metal bed there, but there's no foam rubber or mattress

or anything.

I knew he was dangerous or he wouldn't be in the cell by himself.

Finally, he speaks up.

I said,

how come you're the only person in here that I see that lives by themselves?

And he said,

So I'm like, they put me in with a killer now because I hurt the other guy.

And he's looking at me.

And, I mean, they were not nice looks.

And then I saw he had a half a machete that's broken off.

I certainly didn't sleep at all that night.

I honestly thought I was going to die, period.

For the first two weeks in Hattieville Prison, I honestly thought I was going

die.

It's a violent place.

Weapons were freely held by almost anybody there.

The most brutal thing I saw.

is that I was in the yard, and I hear behind me this sound. It was a thunk,

that, a thunk.

And I spun around, not knowing what it was, and just in time to see what

happened.

And

this

guy's guts just fell out on the ground.

All I want to do is get the hell out of there. That's it.

It was about two weeks before my family found out that I was in Hattieville.

I was very happy to see Penny.

Extremely happy.

She looks at me and she goes, they just want you back in the U .S. All you have

to do is tell them you'll go and you can fly back.

I said, yeah, but you know what? There's a good chance we can win this.

I said, just because I'm committed a crime in the United States does not

the Belizean authorities to put me in jail.

It was decided that we would stay and fight it, and that's what both of us

wanted to do, and that's what we did.

We had to wait quite a period of time while the Belize court system processed

the request to have him extradited.

What I thought was going to be a fairly quick process ended up dragging out for

several months.

The longer that delay went, the more I began to have questions whether or not

this was going to be a successful effort.

One day early on a Sunday, I was in the cell with Camper, and Camper looks out

and he goes, Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, man, you know, Babylon's just come, man.

Babylon, he come.

Babylon met cops.

And he goes, I think they come after you now.

At that point, I knew that that battle was lost.

It was the end.

Simple as that.

Actually, it was a huge relief.

I had no intention of fighting it. I just wanted it over at that point.

As soon as he stepped foot on American soil, he was arrested by federal

marshals. I felt vindicated that one of the biggest people in the business could

actually be successfully prosecuted for their crimes.

By getting Tom back into the United States, we'd achieved one...

large goal in the overall investigation, and that was getting Tom out of

circulation and into our custody.

I was elated.

We got him. We finally got him.

There's no question I made a lot of bad decisions.

I should have just stayed in the U .S. I should have never even went to Belize.

It wouldn't have put my wife through all that stress.

Not a day goes by that I don't regret Penny having to go through all that

And for that, I'm deeply, deeply sorry.

The toll that something like that takes on you is a lot.

I think that's probably why Penny and I aren't married. We destroyed our

marriage, basically, yes.

And that's terrible.