Original subtitles

[cars zooming]

[insects chirring]

[birdsong]

-[Eric Goode] He lives in there, right? -[teen] Yeah.

-Does he have any windows? -No.

-He has no windows? -Just two doors.

-What's in there? -[both] Venomous snakes.

-Just him and the venomous snakes? -Yeah.

[snake tail rattling]

[laughing]

[Eric] Collectively, the amount of venom in this room

could kill what?

[Al Killian] Between the mambas, the Gaboon vipers,

the rattlesnakes, and the cobras,

probably, uh...

half the people in Florida.

[snake hissing]

I don't socialize a lot with people.

I'm more of a recluse.

I'm married to these animals.

But I'm most intimate with my king cobra.

Uh, basically, he hates me, okay?

He hates everybody, but you know,

being with that type of disposition,

he puts on the best show. [laughing]

[cobra growling]

Back in the 1980s, I hooked up with the WWE.

-[crowd cheering] -[announcer] Look at this.

[Al] I supplied king cobras to Jake "The Snake" Roberts.

[crowd booing]

[announcer] In the bag, the king cobra, no doubt.

[Tommy Crutchfield] Jake the Snake, here we go.

[Jake the Snake] Here's a man that used to be a real man.

[Tommy] Al Killian set it up,

and I helped him with the whole thing.

[crowd cheering on video]

This is probably the first time I've looked at this

since it happened.

[Jake Roberts] For the match with the Macho Man,

we decided, hey, let's go all the way.

-[announcer] No, don't do it! -[Jake] Come on.

-[announcer] Macho! -[Jake] Come on, Macho Man.

We got a 15-foot king cobra.

[announcer] What's he doing?

Get out of there, Macho!

Oh, no. That's the creepiest looking snake

I've ever seen in my life.

[Jake] When it came time for the big shot,

that fucker fired up.

[announcer] Wait a minute, the snake is biting him.

The snake is biting him! The snake is biting him!

Can we get some help? The snake is gnawing on the arm.

This is not supposed to happen!

As the snake digs deeper into the arm.

Jake the Snake has lost it. He's lost it.

Please, somebody, get him outta there, for God's sake!

That's the most iconic moment ever in wrestling.

[announcer] Jake Roberts is sick!

You got 20,000 people standing in their seats screaming.

[crowd chanting] Jake the Snake! Jake the Snake!

[Al] People have a fascination with these animals.

[crowd] Jake the Snake! Jake the Snake! Jake the Snake!

But the addiction comes when you get the fever.

[announcer] Ladies and gentlemen, this conference is scheduled...

[Al] That's when you'll do anything to have 'em.

[air boat whirring]

-I see it right there. -Where?

-Oh, there? You see the gator? -You see that big mound?

Right behind it!

-That's a female. -Wow, wow, wow.

-Right there, the gator. -Get me up next to her.

Look at this gator, look at it protecting its nest.

It's protecting its nest. Jesus!

[Tommy] There is no finer animal than this.

And what you're seeing right now is a real alligator

in the Everglades in the wild with a nest,

a female gator that's been here for many, many years.

-[gator growling] -[Eric] Whoa, whoa, whoa!

[Tommy] Let her-- let her come on up.

[gator hissing]

That hiss is like a dog barking or growling,

it's all a bluff.

[gator hissing]

[Tommy chirping]

-[gator hissing] -[Tommy continues chirping]

[♪ dramatic music playing]

[Tommy] Life is all about choices.

When I got involved with Hank Molt,

that was the worst mistake I ever made.

[Bruce Weissgold] Because of Hank Molt,

Tommy Crutchfield was indicted

for smuggling Fiji Island iguanas to the U.S.

[Tommy] I got five months in prison

for the Fiji iguana thing.

Once he got out of prison,

he was very unhappy and very bitter.

That trial and everything

cost tens of thousands of dollars.

It was hard on his reputation.

[goose honking]

[Tommy] All of a sudden, you're persona non grata

and no one wanted to work with me again.

I'm just sitting

with a destroyed reptile business.

I didn't know what to do.

[goose honking]

Okay, I'm going through an article here.

It's called "Wild Cargo, the Business

of Smuggling Animals."

It was this picture that really got my attention.

That's Mr. Dang holding an albino Burmese python.

Nobody had ever heard of an albino python at that time.

[Bryan Christy] Nat Geo went out and did a major story

about wildlife trafficking around the world.

It's designed to shed a light on wildlife crime.

The problem is reptile smugglers read National Geographic.

I thought, who in the hell is this guy,

and how can I get this?

Well, people are always interested in things

that they can't have.

And when it comes to albinos,

there's a lot of interest in them.

I was in New York City.

I had a shop on Third Avenue.

We were importing and exporting live reptiles and amphibians.

I had a friend of mine in Bangkok, Thailand,

and he hired somebody to, uh, break in and steal them,

take them from Mr. Dang.

I wanna sell 'em and get rid of them as soon as I can.

It only took a day to call up Tom Crutchfield.

It's all about who you know, I guess.

Alfred Ojeda said he could offer me

three albino Burmese pythons.

But I have to buy all three, and the price was $21,000.

So, I took a second mortgage on the house

so that I'd be able to afford to buy it.

[Penny Crutchfield] Tom was willing to risk

everything to get that albino.

I was not happy about it, but he still continued on.

[Alfred Ojeda] He put his house up for collateral

and he paid for them.

And I shipped them down to him,

the same wooden crates that they came in.

[Bob Clark] I remember exactly when I saw that snake.

I was sitting in a barber chair

and I was reading a National Geographic.

I saw it on there and I thought, well, I can't even believe it.

-[snake hissing] -It was the snake

of my young dreams.

These mutations occur in the wild very rarely.

If there's 10,000, maybe there's one

that's gonna look different.

Rare, special, desirable.

I knew a little bit about genetics,

and I had a master's in herpetology.

I thought, oh, boy, if I could have that thing,

I could breed albinos and maybe I could make some money.

[snake hissing]

It was some months after that,

I heard Tommy Crutchfield's got it.

I contacted Tom and I said, uh, I want that.

[Tommy] Bob flew down.

I have pictures of him holding the first one.

[Bob] It was a wonderful albino python.

Bright yellow, red eyes.

Beautiful, wonderful, it was the best thing ever.

Well, then he didn't wanna sell it.

I said, "Well, how 'bout this?

"I'll breed it, we'll share the babies,

we'll have a project, we'll go halfsies on it."

-He said... -It will cost you $10,000

for the breeding loan.

I own half

of all of the offspring the first year.

[Bob] I brought the snake back,

I bred it, I had some babies.

These babies, they looked normal,

but they carried the albino gene

and they had the ability to make albinos later.

I was breeding two gene carries to each other,

I got seven of 'em.

But once I was breeding albino to albino,

I could get 30, or 40, or 50 in a clutch of eggs.

Some of 'em have a lot of babies.

And so, I could double my production.

The first year I had seven, the next year I had 70.

It was exponential from that point.

[♪ dramatic music playing]

[soft squelching]

[Dwayne Cunningham] The babies that were produced

could go for as much as $15,000 each.

Everybody wanted 'em.

[audience cheering]

[Bob] The snake in the Britney Spears video,

that snake was loaned to her from Siegfried and Roy,

which is a snake that I sold to them.

Bob and I both made an incredible amount of money.

[Eric] Did you ever make a million dollars in a year?

-Boy, I hate to say that. -But you made money.

Yeah, I have made millions of dollars breeding snakes.

Bob understood the science of it,

that that snake could produce a lot of what we call morphs.

You could interbreed things and create

genetic cross variants and different colors.

Not only albino white, but gold and purple,

and pretty much anything else.

[Bryan] Suddenly, people were breeding

genetically distinct forms that no one's ever seen before.

You can be in that business, it's legal.

[Tommy] For the first time, people realized

you could actually make a living breeding reptiles.

[seller] Our income this year from the business

will probably be in the neighborhood of $350,000

to $400,000.

Probably doing $250,000 to $300,000 a year in sales.

We made about $2 million within five years.

This is a scaleless corn snake.

[Hank Molt] And they could produce these things

just like a baker could create cookies.

[Mike Wilbanks] This is the male, we move him

from one to the next.

I specialize in color morphs like this.

This is a-- a black-eyed leucistic ball python.

And the first one of these, I sold for $200,000.

Whatever you want, we can put a different paint job

-on it for you. -[Eric laughing]

You sound like you're talking about custom cars.

-Are you into custom cars? -I'm not into--

I'm only into custom snakes. [chuckles]

[Bryan] These guys are turning spots into stripes

and brown snakes, and yellow and white snakes

and giving them crazy names like Dreamsicle,

and Golden Child, Ghost Baby, and Tangerine Dream.

[seller] Spinner Blast. Diablo Blanco.

This is my leucistic monocled cobra.

Oh, what a beautiful fricking cobra.

There's all these different color morphs,

all these different snakes to get.

Not only was just snakes, but any sort of reptile.

Gators, lizards, turtles, you fucking name it.

It's a fucking addiction, dude.

[Tommy] This morph craze,

that's probably what really set my business off

more than anything else.

[Dwayne] Tommy set up a breeding facility.

[Tommy] I had albino monitor lizards.

Albino iguanas.

I sold albino alligators

for $175,000 each.

I was back.

-[birdsong] -[dog barking]

[Eric] So, this is what everyone's talking about.

-You're breeding these. -[Tommy] Yeah.

-No, don't hold it. -Oh, just do that. Oh, I see.

-I don't have the best traction. -Is that incredible or what?

[Eric] They're like, you know, science fiction almost, right?

-[Tommy] Yeah. -You kinda cornered the market on these guys, right?

[Tommy] Only because I'm good at breeding them.

A lot of people have the same ability.

They just don't produce the animals.

[Eric] You make money with morphs,

but you love finding just the unique animals

-and not just morphs. -[Tommy] I just like-- yeah, I like all reptiles.

Me being in the business I was in

is like an alcoholic owning a liquor store.

[Adamm Smith] Tom, he knows how to breed reptiles.

But he's not a businessman, management-wise.

So, I was the manager.

And even though a lot of money coming through, you know,

we do 10, 20, $30,000 of stuff,

but it tended to disappear.

A lot of the money just went back into buying more reptiles.

[Penny] Tom always wanted more.

He wanted more rare, he wanted the best.

He wanted the most unusual,

no matter the consequences.

[Tommy] The urge to have something,

it wasn't even so much about money.

It had more to do with obsession

of acquiring the animal.

[Eric] So, if someone offered you something illegal, you took the bait.

I-If it's something I've never had before

and I want it,

and I have to bend a corner to get it,

absolutely.

And, uh, a-and I did just that.

I had met two Germans by the name of Wolfgang Kloe

and Frank Lehmeyer.

And they were smuggling stuff out of Madagascar.

[Penny] They started coming in,

and they'd bring their stuff in.

They don't care about Fish and Wildlife

or laws or rules.

They just-- they didn't really give a shit.

I'll never forget up at the shop.

In walks Wolfgang with two big boxes full of turtles.

And it became very apparent very quickly

he had no paperwork.

He just flew in through Orlando

and didn't declare 200 turtles.

Tom, in his infinite wisdom, had Penny type up

some kind of document saying they were legally imported

to the US and sold legally to Crutchfield Reptiles.

Had it notarized, very official.

[stamp clicking]

[Tommy] And these Germans were bringing

a lot of Madagascan tree boas back to the U.S. illegally.

Madagascan tree boas, they're absolutely beautiful.

[Hank] It's mostly gold, black, brown blotches.

Pretty snake, big, long sharp teeth.

[Tommy] There weren't many in private hands.

They said they could get babies.

Did I want 'em?

Hell yes, I wanted them.

[insects chirring]

What they were doing was actually

getting pregnant females from the wild.

[Hank] And they would suitcase these things

out of Madagascar into Frankfurt, Germany,

'cause it was easy to get stuff into Frankfurt.

And when they had babies, a team in Germany

recruited college girls from Canada

with a promise of a trip to Europe.

[airplane engine roaring]

[♪ upbeat drumbeat playing]

They would fly to Frankfurt, Germany.

Have a wonderful trip.

-[♪ upbeat music playing] -[accordion trilling]

-[sausages sizzling] -[glasses clinking]

Be given the baby boas with the details of what to do...

and just innocently carry back a suitcase

with non-venomous reptiles to Canada...

-[bubble gum popping] -...figuring they wouldn't get caught.

And if they got caught, they would just be told,

-"Don't do it again." -[stamp clicking]

And then, there would be the second tier of guys...

-[trunk slamming, echoing] -...who would drive the reptiles

from Toronto to Florida.

[Tommy] They were doing it all over the country.

But I was probably one of their biggest customers.

Which was a problem.

[Penny] Tom didn't realize that Frank and Wolfgang

were compromised somewhere along the line.

[snake hissing]

[mouse squeaking]

[George Morrison] I've always been a big game hunter.

Got my first deer when I was 18 or 19.

Shortly after that, I got hired by U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service

and started hunting people.

[officer 1] Police with a search warrant!

[officer 2] Okay, step out. Face away from me.

[George] When I joined the branch of special operations,

we started looking heavily at the reptile trade.

From the beginning, we knew it was a problem,

but we didn't realize the extent of it

until Strictly Reptiles went down.

We knew through the intelligence we had gathered,

the most prolific wildlife smuggler in the world

was Anson Wong.

But Anson wasn't alone.

There were smugglers and illegal dealers

all over the world.

We wanted to go after everybody.

And so, we developed

one of the biggest undercover operation

in the history of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service,

called Operation Chameleon.

[Bruce] So, Operation Chameleon was a multi-year effort

by the Special Operations Branch

to investigate international reptile trafficking.

Anson Wong was still a logical target.

But we were working on cases that span the entire globe.

[George] Thailand, Taiwan,

Hong Kong, Indonesia, Germany.

As you flip through here, you see many of the names

that we were aware of,

the people that were involved in the-- the illegal trade.

These were all guys we were looking at.

Two obvious targets became Frank Lehmeyer

and Wolfgang Kloe.

We knew they were poaching and trafficking

from Madagascar.

Fish and Wildlife Service needed to get inside.

So, we brought in the best of the best.

[Eric] How many reptile people do you think

you've put in prison?

-[Ken McCloud] Hundreds. -[Eric] Hundreds?

[Ken] Maybe.

Been notified twice of contracts

that have been put out on my life.

I've been concerned, but I try not to let it

interfere with my lifelong quest

to save endangered and protected reptiles.

As a kid, my parents had a map on the wall.

The first place I put an X was on Madagascar.

Because I thought the Madagascan day gecko

was the most beautiful animal I'd ever seen in my life.

I would live and breathe reptiles.

Read every book the libraries had.

Memorizing scientific names.

And it became an obsession.

Almost a drug addiction.

I would do anything that would put me near reptiles.

I started as a wildlife inspector

for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

An inspector would cautiously open the package away from him

using what we call a snake hook to make sure

that there are no snakes that have escaped from the bags,

what they call snake bags.

It is a rather attractive animal.

[Ken] When I was accepted as a special agent,

I was delighted.

Was particularly good at undercover work.

I was known as Mark Phillips,

a businessman running a sportswear company,

and collector of high-end reptiles.

[recorded message] Good day, you have reached Kiwi Sportswear,

Office of Mr. Mark Phillips, distributor.

Mr. Phillips is on another line or unavailable

-to take your call. -[machine beeping]

A trafficker needs to be a really good liar to succeed,

and an undercover agent

needs to be an even better liar.

And the best undercover agents were the best liars.

[Ken] [as Mark] Have a chance to give any thought

to the radiated tortoises,

if you might have a group price for those?

I could speak the language, talk the talk,

and walk the walk.

[person laughing]

[George] I was Ken's direct supervisor in the field.

People used to tell me, said, "You gotta get that guy

to quit working so much."

I said, his work is his life.

[Ernest Mayer] I'd call him an expert in reptiles.

I mean, he was well-educated, knew how to handle 'em,

knew how to identify 'em, knew where they came from.

[Ken] [as Mark] Sure.

[Ken] So, I just used my skill sets

and focused on catching

the target of the investigations.

[beeping, dial tone]

[Frank Lehmeyer] Hello?

[Ken] Hello, is this Frank?

Frank, this is Mark Phillips from the United States.

[Ken] Frank Lehmeyer is a friend

of a Canadian that I had befriended.

[on recording] He said that we have a mutual interest in reptiles

and that we may be able to work some deals together

in the future that would be beneficial to both of us.

He explained to me on the phone, very openly,

that they just returned from Madagascar

and they had a number of radiated tortoises.

[Frank] [on recording]

[Ken] [on recording] Saturday? Great.

And we set up a buy.

I flew to New York.

The Germans did not come into the United States.

They were going to send a courier.

[Ken] I carried a video camera

in a little suitcase.

[Ken] I met with the courier.

We went up to his room.

And he went to the drawer of the dresser

and pulled out a box full of Madagascan radiated tortoises.

I was able to prove that I was cool

and, uh, could be trusted.

[machine beeping]

[Ken] [on recording] Hello, is Frank home?

[person] Yes, wait a minute, please.

[Ken] Pretty soon, Wolfgang Kloe and Frank Lehmeyer

were talking to me on a weekly basis.

[Frank] [on recording] Hello, this is Frank from Germany.

[Ken] [on recording] Sorry I'm calling you so late.

I was detained at a business meeting.

Yeah, actually, if you could give us

one green and one brown, that'd be great.

[Ken] I wanted to get them in the country.

[Ken] [on recording] Are you planning on coming over to the United States?

[Ken] Eventually, they told me they were going to bring

some Sanzinia, or Madagascar tree boas,

to the States.

[Ken] [on recording] I would certainly like to buy

some of your extra babies.

[Frank] [on recording] We'll definitely come to the Expo

the 16th of-- of August.

[Ken] We set a date to meet at the, uh, Expo.

This was my chance to get the German cartel.

[Ken] [on recording] I'll probably be in what I normally wear,

just Western boots and blue jeans,

and I've kind of got blonde hair with a ponytail.

[Willard Scott] Central Florida Herpetological

is having its Breeders Expo in Orlando.

"Herpetological," does anybody have any idea what that means?

[anchor] Something about snakes.

Hey, how did you know?

-The stage manager told me. -[laughter]

[reporter] The only way to get over your fear of snakes

is to accept and respect them.

And I can tell you at this time, I definitely respect them.

[Hank] People from all over the world

would descend on Central Florida.

It was considered the place to go.

Captive breeders were coming to the Expo

and showing their stuff.

[seller] The-- the markings and the coloration

on that animal, it's exclusive.

The Expo was the Woodstock of reptile shows.

The young man who lost his ball python

in the men's room, please report to the microphone counter.

[George] All your well-known dealers were there.

[Tommy] This is an albino American alligator.

It's one of only seven known in the world.

This can be had for about $125,000.

[Wayne Hill] It was a hell of a show.

The only problem was that U.S. Fish and Wildlife

loved it because they didn't have to travel

all over the world to bust these people.

[Bruce] We knew that there was a huge legal wildlife trade

at the Expo,

and it served as a cover

for wildlife trafficking.

[Ken] It was the ultimate collection

of reptile smugglers and dealers

gathered together.

The equivalent would be an annual gathering

of drug cartels in Juarez.

[elevator dings]

The smuggling wasn't really happening down on the floor.

Everybody was wheeling and dealing in the motel rooms.

I set up the room, drilled holes in the cabinets,

and put a pinhole lens.

[George] [on video] At the hole now where the pinhole lens

and camera will be shooting from.

Wire runs down through the carpeting

to the adjoining room and on into the video recorder.

Rolling.

Hey, how you doing?

[Ken] Frank Lehmeyer did not come into the United States,

but Wolfgang Kloe did.

[Wolfgang chuckles]

[Ken] The Germans smuggled in about 80 Madagascan tree boas.

[laughter]

[George] I was in the adjoining room recording

and being ready to protect the agent

if-- if something went bad, if the whole deal went bad.

I recorded the whole exchange of reptiles and money,

and the admissions of guilt from the defendants.

[Bruce] Once we had documented enough criminal activity,

we were ready to arrest Wolfgang Kloe.

[George] We knew Wolfgang Kloe

was going to a restaurant nearby.

[Bruce] Agents arrested him there.

He asked not to be handcuffed behind his back.

So, you know, I think,

well, it was just basic, decent act of kindness.

You know, the agent who arrested him

handcuffed him in the front.

[handcuffs clicking]

Put him in the backseat of a car

with an-- an agent driving

to take him to jail in Orlando.

[Bruce] Well, coming up to a toll booth

on the Florida Turnpike...

Wolfgang Kloe bails out of the car.

I mean, our agent just left his car

sitting in the middle of the toll booth

and went after him.

-[Bruce] There was a foot race. -[siren wailing]

-He ran across eight lanes of traffic. -[car horns honking]

In handcuffs, wearing Birkenstocks.

[Bruce] Made it over the fence, far side of the highway,

and headed off into the neighborhood.

Construction worker in the neighborhood

saw him running with handcuffs, and just grabbed him for us.

There was a lot of, uh, chatter

on the law enforcement radio when that happened.

[faint indistinct chatter]

[person coughing]

[Ken] This is the deposition of Wolfgang Kloe.

Swear the testimony you're about to give in this case will be the truth,

the whole truth, and nothing but the truth,

-so help you God? -Yes, I will.

Elinor Colbourn on behalf of the United States.

[Elinor Colbourn] I was a trial attorney

in the Wildlife and Marine Resources section.

I flew into Orlando to be there for the arrest,

to be on hand for whatever developed.

Have you ever collected any snakes?

Yes, I did.

-From the wild? -Yes, I did.

[Elinor] Did there come a time

when you sold any of those animals?

Uh, yes, we sold those animals.

To whom did you sell them?

Um, we sold these animals

to Tom Crutchfield's Reptile Enterprises.

[Elinor] We learned that there was in fact

an ongoing relationship with Tom Crutchfield.

Placing before you, Mr. Kloe, what's been marked

as Government Exhibit Number 3.

[Wolfgang] That's the building where Tom Crutchfield's,

uh, reptile shop is, yeah.

We stayed in that area for about two or three days,

and we went to his shop, uh, almost every day.

And so, that aspect of the case

developed very quickly thereafter.

[Ken] I started typing up a search warrant

for Tom Crutchfield's business.

If we got Crutchfield for a second time,

we should get a good sentence.

[Tommy] We had gone down to eat at Catfish Johnny's,

which is a restaurant.

The Fish and Wildlife Service agents come in the front door.

This guy's name was Ernie somebody,

and he pops up, "Federal agent, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service!"

We had a search warrant for his business.

We would like him to come along.

I said, "So, I-- So I'm not gonna be able to eat?

I have to go down there?" He goes, "Yep."

Told Tom, "You're not under arrest,

but we are going to search your-- your business."

Tom Crutchfield followed us back to his shop.

It was a surreal experience walking into Tom's office.

You know, we're looking for paperwork,

and there's a sweater box with Cuban crocodiles

hatching out of their eggs.

Not something that you see every day.

[items clanging]

When we executed the warrant,

the reaction from Tom Crutchfield was clearly,

"Holy shit, this is not just the local agents.

This is something much more significant."

I didn't know what in the actual fuck was going on.

They searched my entire shop.

[Ernest] We were looking for incriminating evidence

to cement the case of the conspiracy

to violate federal law.

We basically had to look in every file folder,

cabinets that he had in there.

There was a few animals that were in question.

I had to search the venomous room by myself.

[snake tails rattling]

That was a tense few hours opening sweater boxes.

-There was a large cobra... -[snake hissing]

...that had been repeatedly trying to bite me

in the rear end as I bent over.

[Tommy] It was funny as shit.

He looked like he was gonna vomit.

I just started laughing, of course.

They went through the offices,

they went through the desk drawers,

took boxes and boxes of stuff with 'em.

Uh, they were there for a long time.

They shut everything down, took all the computers.

They took our animals.

[Ernest] We were probably there five or six hours,

and we had some very good incriminating documents in there

that could lead to Tom Crutchfield's conviction.

[Bruce] Some number of weeks after the search warrant...

an agent for Fish and Wildlife came out to the facility.

The facility had been completely cleared out,

and all we could find were a bunch of neighborhood kids

running around in the trees,

chasing all these exotic lizards

that were hopping around.

[Tommy] After they searched my entire shop,

I knew that all this was coming down.

I was on probation, and I realized

that this is never gonna fucking end.

And I realized that liberty and justice is not for all.

-[radio static] -♪ Good morning, Belize ♪

♪ And good morning ♪

♪ I say good morning, Belize, and good morning ♪

♪ And how are you this morning? ♪

The good news from Belize is, there's no news from Belize.

It's in a world of its own.

If you were to write a motto for Belize,

it might be "no sweat."

I found out that we can't be extradited from Belize

on this-- a wildlife charge of any kind,

so we drove down there in 1996.

We opened up a car rental business.

I bought a bunch of rental cars.

It was called Iguana Car Rental.

I even took people out myself occasionally

on, uh, sort of eco tours.

It was working out pretty well, really.

I was not happy.

It was really hard for my children

to leave the United States

where they had all their friends.

Vanessa got pulled out of high school.

We were trying to keep it together down there,

but, you know, that's really difficult.

[dog barking]

[Penny] It was very stressful being a fugitive

because they still were pursuing us.

[Bruce] We quickly figured out that Tom had fled to Belize

to avoid the Operation Chameleon charges.

[Ernest] In my mind, I actually was thinking,

"This is really great,"

'cause he just added a serious felony offense

by fleeing the country.

Of course, it presented us with a problem.

How do we get our hands on him?

We got in touch with the Belizean authorities,

and they promptly conducted their own investigation.

[Penny] There were people in the house at the end of the block

that were watching us with spy glasses.

It was scary.

Found out that the family

was running an illegal reptile business

out of their Belize accommodations.

Never learned his lesson.

Never turned it around.

That was his downfall,

just his arrogance

and his infatuation with reptiles.

The cops in Belize don't have guns.

But in my case, they came with guns.

Belizean Dragon Force shows up at my house,

machine guns and stuff.

[Vanessa Crutchfield] They went in after Dad

like he was a murderer.

We're animal people. This is weird.

They arrest me and they take me

to the Racoon Street substation.

I'm in a state of shock now.

It was my worst nightmare.

[♪ dramatic music playing]

Tom got arrested and put in Belize prison,

and then we couldn't get him out.

[Tommy] And so, I'm sitting now in Hattieville Prison

in a cell with a guy who stabbed his last cellmate

in a fight and killed him.

[Ernest] Hattieville has a reputation

of being maybe one of the worst jails

in North or Central America.

[Tommy] They had a brutal prison guard,

and he carried a big stick,

and he raised his stick at me one time,

and I turned around and looked at him,

I said, "Let me tell you something,

you slimy son of a bitch."

I said, "If you hit me with that stick,"

I said, "I'm gonna take that gun off your waistband.

I'm gonna stick it up your fucking ass sideways."

And I said, "I'm gonna kill you."

And I said, "And the other guards are gonna kill me."

And then I said, "But I want you to remember,

"my family's on the outside.

"They're gonna kill everybody in your fucking family,

"and we're gonna start with the chickens,

and work up to the grandparents."

I said, "I promise you. That's not a threat.

It's a fucking promise. Hit me with it, dickhead."

He didn't.

[Penny] It was terrible.

People got murdered there all the time.

It was scary having to go visit him

and having to take him water and food.

[Tommy] You were served a-- in the morning,

a four-ounce piece of bread with bugs and shit.

Lunch was a cupful of rice and beans and a chicken foot.

A foot. Not the drumstick,

but a-- a foot, you know, with the toes.

At that point, I realized that happiness

is really a state of mind, not a state of being.

[Ken] We really wanted Tom Crutchfield back.

So, the U.S. Department of Justice

and Elinor Colbourn

put some pressure on the Belize government

to have Tom Crutchfield returned to the United States.

-[plane engine rumbling] -[♪ upbeat music playing]

[Elinor] We were notified of the flight they placed him on,

and it was a nonstop flight into Miami,

so we were able to meet the flight there

and take him into custody.

Once I got back, I was indicted

for buying wildlife

from the Germans that they smuggled.

[Ken] Wolfgang Kloe was sentenced to 46 months.

Frank Lehmeyer, he testified against him

in a court of law in Germany.

I understand he was fined $160,000 U.S.

[Ernest] Tom Crutchfield ultimately pled guilty

to seven felony charges.

He was sentenced to 30 months in jail

and placed on probation for three years.

My punishment was, I had six months

of in-home arrest,

and then I had electronic bracelet

for another six months.

My mother, my sweet, nice mother,

ended up with an ankle bracelet on.

[Ernest] Penny Crutchfield was a victim

of Tom Crutchfield, in my opinion.

I mean, she was culpable, don't get me wrong.

I don't know if it was love or whether it was

just his strong will to manipulate people.

'Cause he did, he was a manipulator.

[Eric] What was your crime?

What did you-- what were you charged for?

I was charged with smuggling reptiles,

even though I didn't smuggle 'em.

Well...

[laughing]

Not that was provable.

[Vanessa] All these problems with Fish and Wildlife,

it did take a toll on the marriage.

It would take a toll on any marriage.

My mom stood with my dad through all the legal troubles

and all that, and after all that was done,

that's when they ended up separating and getting divorced.

I totally loved Tom.

I-- I still love Tom, but...

Tom's main love of life is reptiles.

After a while, I'm like, "Well, I'm done."

[snake hissing]

[Eric] Wow, beautiful snake.

-[snake hissing] -Whoa!

[Tommy] That's a black Pakistan cobra,

so there's no anti-venom for this.

If this bites you, you'll die real quick.

[Penny] I feel like in the reptile world,

it's a certain type of people,

and I don't think it's a good idea

to put your trust in them.

They want what they want,

and it's their addiction to snakes and reptiles.

It is.

[snake hissing]

[Ken] I'm Special Agent Ken McCloud,

U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Division of Law Enforcement.

While Tom Crutchfield's in federal prison,

I'm interviewing his Vice President, Adamm Smith.

We interviewed the man from eight o'clock in the morning

till 11 o'clock at night,

and for two days straight.

[Adamm] Ken McCloud, very personable.

-Right. -[Adamm] Unassuming,

you know, made you comfortable.

Blab-blab-blab. Get yourself in trouble.

[Vanessa] Adamm Smith told Fish and Wildlife

every fucking thing

that he could possibly think of to tell them.

[Adamm] Tom cut himself in. He had made a good deal with them.

He'd go to Australia and get strip-searched every trip.

I'd have paid $50,000 for that snake.

Alligators, I don't know if they're real.

[overlapping voices]

[Ken] After several hours...

[Adamm] He sends 'em to San Diego Zoo.

[Ken] ...Adamm Smith mentions Tom Schultz

at the San Diego Zoo.

And... we stopped, and I said,

"What? What are you talking about?"

And he says, "Oh, you don't know that?"

Right, so Tom Schultz and Tom Crutchfield

were good friends.

Tom Schultz was the, uh, curator of reptiles.

[Ken] He was curator of reptiles

at the San Diego Zoo.

Incredible guy.

Tom Schultz.

I mean, the biggest zoo in the country.

-[children laughing] -♪ You belong in the zoo ♪

♪ The San Diego Zoo ♪

[Bruce] Starting in the 1970s,

we knew that prominent zoos around the country

were buying trafficked animals,

and knowingly buying trafficked animals.

They wanted the animals for their collection,

so they bought 'em from smugglers.

[Ken] But for years,

the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service

thought the big zoos were untouchable.

[Tommy] In the years I knew Tom Schultz

and did business with the San Diego Zoo,

they bought hundreds and hundreds of animals from me.

He bought stuff that he knew was illegal...

including womas, black-headed pythons,

diamond pythons.

He always wanted the rarest of the rare.

[Adamm] Basically, it was a symbiotic relationship.

Tom Schultz would come and get stuff,

and-- and back and forth, you know.

[Ken] One would scratch one's back

and the other would scratch the other's back.

Tom Schultz was selling animals

that were property of the San Diego Zoo,

and deposit that money

into his own personal bank account.

[gator rumbling]

[Elinor] As we looked through the records,

there were things like Rolexes that changed hands.

[Ken] We found a number of records, bank checks,

deposits, telephone records,

airline tickets, motel records.

Tom Schultz was scamming everybody

and making huge sums of money.

We had enough evidence

to convict Tom Schultz

on a number of federal felonies.

[Elinor] Ultimately, he entered a plea agreement

and agreed to leave his job as curator of reptiles.

[Ken] We proved zoos are not untouchable.

That shook up a lot of curators.

[Hank] It was a real slap in the face, wake-up call.

The zoos then decided to reinvent themselves.

There was serious pressure.

Zoos overnight had to greenwash themselves

and become conservation-oriented.

They created departments of education.

They created conservation curators.

[guest] Two adults and two children.

[Dr. Patrick Burchfield] And here's the thing, right now, more people

go to zoos and aquariums every year in the United States

than all the professional athletic events combined.

[Tommy] And yet, I doubt that many people,

when they look at animals in zoos,

even think about where they acquired the animals from

in the first place.

And a lot of them are acquired from people sort of like myself.

[Ernest] Probably the most telling thing

when we got access to Tom Schultz's records,

was the connection he had with Anson Wong

through Tommy Crutchfield.

Some of the rarest animals at the San Diego Zoo

went through Anson Wong's hands.

[George] The web of Anson Wong, it just went on and on.

All the down-and-dirty hard work,

16-hour days, the highs and the lows.

If we're gonna put this kind of stress on ourselves

in addition to the-- to the time and effort and money,

let's go after the biggest and the worst.

Anson Wong was still operating freely out of Malaysia.

So, we had to figure out the next move.

What are we gonna do?

And I think part of me was saying,

I've had it with this. [laughing]

I'm gonna have to do something. I'm gonna have to shake this up.

[♪ dramatic music playing]

[person] George!

[George] So, to get Wong to where we could arrest him...

I'd have to get in close and personal.

Try to make this guy trust me and make friends.

-[line ringing] -[Eric] I'm calling.

[Ken] It was extremely well thought out.

But we didn't know what we were getting into.

-[line ringing] -[George] Make no mistake,

you don't know how bad of a guy he is.

I had heard rumors of Anson Wong

being tied in with the Chinese mafia.

[reporter 1] Crime syndicates are involved.

[reporter 2] The most notorious

and flagrant in the world.

[George] He can be a dangerous guy.

[Tommy] Well, he's fucking dangerous.

[line ringing]

[phone clicking]

Anson?

[snake hissing]

[♪ dramatic music playing]