ine years ago, her husband set off across the South China Sea on a ship loaded with around 10 tonnes of frozen pangolins and pangolin scales, in search of a quick fortune.
But he never came back to her. There was a betrayal, she says, and customs officers were already waiting for the ship when it arrived at the delivery point off the coast of Zhuhai, China.
“They pushed all the blame to him, made it seem like he was the boss. And he was too loyal, he swallowed all the blame himself.” - Wife of convicted pangolin smuggler
Meeting her at her family home in Penang, on Peninsular Malaysia, she bears neither the wrinkles nor the bitterness of a long-suffering wife. She is calm and young looking, with a detached air.
As detached as the terse prose by which court records describe her husband’s crime:
On the morning of May 23, 2010,... six persons piloted the vessel ‘Zhuwan 3815’, from Xiangzhou Port, Zhuhai City, Guangdong Province... they reached Malaysian waters, where they separately transferred from two trawlers frozen pangolins and their scales in white plastic packages…
The journey would likely have been more dramatic. Based on testimonies recorded in the court documents and coordinates lifted from her husband’s phone, he was first flown to Macau by his boss, then made his way to Zhuhai, where he met with his accomplices.
Then came the journey. Piecing together the evidence, this is likely how it went: Six men in a wooden fishing vessel embarking from Zhuhai, crossing almost the entire South China Sea, before meeting a trawler in the waters off the easternmost tip of Sarawak, at a point between Malaysian and Indonesian waters. They transferred frozen pangolins and scales, and stored them in the ship’s freezer. Then they cruised across Borneo’s entire western coast and met another trawler, off the coast of Kota Kinabalu, transferring more frozen pangolins and scales, but this time in white plastic packages. They then motored back over the South China Sea, where unknown to them, their fate had already been sealed.
It was Day 15 of the voyage, they were anchored at the delivery location off the coast near Zhuhai International Airport, and he was taking stock of the pangolins on the ship’s deck when the officers arrived and arrested them.
In total, 7.85 tonnes of frozen pangolins and 1.8 tonnes of scales were seized, equivalent to over 3,000 individual pangolins. This was their third such trip, according to confessions in court records, which the wife confirms to us: “The previous two trips were smaller, this third one was the largest.”
For all three trips, the courts pointed at her husband as the mastermind:
In this joint crime, the accused (name redacted) is the key person, the principal offender.
“They pushed all the blame to him, made it seem like he was the boss,” she says of the four crewmen and captain on the ship with her husband. “And he was too loyal, he swallowed all the blame himself.”
“There was a representative from China and an agent from Hong Kong who came to Sabah, they checked the stock there before the delivery,” she says, politely implying that one of them was the traitor.
The courts handed him a life sentence, a shockingly heavy penalty. The crew and captain were only sentenced to between five to ten years.
But he wasn’t the boss, says the wife. He was just a hired hand who coordinated local poachers to bring pangolins to a factory, where they were slaughtered, processed and frozen. The real bosses stumped the capital to buy the pangolins from the poachers. He was on the ship just to oversee the stock’s safe delivery to China.
“He was working for other people. And the boss is a big-time businessman in Sabah,” she says. “I never spoke to him or met him, his lackeys are the ones who communicated with me.”
In the aftermath of the arrest, one of these lackeys called her with the news. They promised to take care of the matter, to hire lawyers for him, and that they would pay the family RM1,500 every month. They even paid for her and her daughter to visit him in the Guangzhou prison.
He, the captain and crew all lost their trials and their subsequent appeals. While the crew are now free, reporters in China have found them in impoverished conditions, with several falling into drug addiction.
There is a pause in our conversation, and she looks away. “After all these years, I’m already numb. There are no more feelings.”
“But those first few years were really difficult.” Her eyes suddenly grow distant, her composure slips a fraction. “Luckily our two older sons were understanding, they studied and worked part-time to take care of the family.”
He is allowed one 15-minute phone call home every month, if his behaviour is good. If she misses that phone call, she waits for next month.
She says his sentence has since been commuted to 19 years, and then lightened further to 12. Three more years before he can come home.
“He just wanted to go to Sabah to find some work,” she says thinking back. He was supposed to work in a furniture factory. “But then he met some people, these bosses, and he told me he wanted to earn a quick fortune, so he started doing this.”
The bosses have since stopped paying her. According to her, they made vague excuses, then cut off contact a year and a half after the arrest.
But whoever these bosses are, their syndicate has the distinction of being the first syndicate known to supply frozen processed pangolins. And there are signs that they were still in business as recently as February 2019.
That was when Malaysian authorities raided two premises in Kota Kinabalu, Sabah, seizing 27.9 tonnes of frozen, descaled, gutted pangolins in huge freezers. A further 361kg of scales made it the largest pangolin seizure ever recorded.
One of the raided premises, which was identified as the factory where pangolins were processed, is near Sepanggar Port, which is just off the waters where the 2010 smugglers transferred one batch of pangolins.
A source close to the investigations revealed that the manner in which the pangolins were packaged – in layers of plastic bags and boxes – suggests they were meant for export, most likely to China. However, they have yet to confirm if the same syndicate is behind both cases.
One man was arrested, whom the source says was in charge of coordinating local poachers to supply pangolins to the factory, where the animals are processed and frozen.
Lucky for him, he was arrested in Malaysia, where punishments for wildlife trafficking are lighter than China’s. He is now out on bail pending investigations. The bosses are believed to be still at large.
Nine years ago, her husband set off across the South China Sea on a ship loaded with around 10 tonnes of frozen pangolins and pangolin scales, in search of a quick fortune.
But he never came back to her. There was a betrayal, says the wife, and customs officers were already waiting for the ship when it arrived at the delivery point off the coast of Zhuhai, China.
Meeting her at her family home in Penang, on Peninsular Malaysia, she bears neither the wrinkles nor the bitterness of a long-suffering wife. She is calm and young looking, with a detached air.
As detached as the terse prose by which court records describe her husband’s crime:
On the morning of May 23, 2010,... six persons piloted the vessel ‘Zhuwan 3815’, from Xiangzhou Port, Zhuhai City, Guangdong Province... they reached Malaysian waters, where they separately transferred from two trawlers frozen pangolins and their scales in white plastic packages…
The journey would likely have been more dramatic. Based on testimonies recorded in the court documents and coordinates lifted from her husband’s phone, he was first flown to Macau by his boss, then made his way to Zhuhai, where he met with his accomplices.
Then came the journey. Piecing together the evidence, this is likely how it went: Six men in a wooden fishing vessel embarking from Zhuhai, crossing almost the entire South China Sea, before meeting a trawler in the waters off the easternmost tip of Sarawak, at a point between Malaysian and Indonesian waters. They transferred frozen pangolins and scales, and stored them in the ship’s freezer. Then they cruised across Borneo’s entire western coast and met another trawler, off the coast of Kota Kinabalu, transferring more frozen pangolins and scales, but this time in white plastic packages. They then motored back over the South China Sea, where unknown to them, their fate had already been sealed.
It was Day 15 of the voyage, they were anchored at the delivery location off the coast near Zhuhai International Airport, and he was taking stock of the pangolins on the ship’s deck when the officers arrived and arrested them.
In total, 7.85 tonnes of frozen pangolins and 1.8 tonnes of scales were seized, equivalent to over 3,000 individual pangolins. This was their third such trip, according to confessions in court records, which the wife confirms to us: “The previous two trips were smaller, this third one was the largest.”
For all three trips, the courts pointed at her husband as the mastermind:
In this joint crime, the accused (name redacted) is the key person, the principal offender.
“They pushed all the blame to him, made it seem like he was the boss,” she says of the four crewmen and captain on the ship with her husband. “And he was too loyal, he swallowed all the blame himself.”
“There was a representative from China and an agent from Hong Kong who came to Sabah, they checked the stock there before the delivery,” she says, politely implying that one of them was the traitor.
The courts handed him a life sentence, a shockingly heavy penalty. The crew and captain were only sentenced to between five to ten years.
But he wasn’t the boss, says the wife. He was just a hired hand who coordinated local poachers to bring pangolins to a factory, where they were slaughtered, processed and frozen. The real bosses stumped the capital to buy the pangolins from the poachers. He was on the ship just to oversee the stock’s safe delivery to China.
“He was working for other people. And the big boss is someone named Xie, he is from Sabah,” she says. “He is a big-time businessman in Sabah. I never spoke to him or met him, his lackeys are the ones who communicated with me.”
In the aftermath of the arrest, one of these lackeys called her with the news. They promised to take care of the matter, to hire lawyers for him, and that they would pay the family RM1,500 every month. They even paid for her and her daughter to visit him in the Guangzhou prison.
He, the captain and crew all lost their trials and their subsequent appeals. While the crew are now free, reporters in China have found them in impoverished conditions, with several falling into drug addiction.
There is a pause in our conversation, and she looks away. “After all these years, I’m already numb. There are no more feelings.”
“But those first few years were really difficult.” Her eyes suddenly grow distant, her composure slips a fraction. “Luckily our two older sons were understanding, they studied and worked part-time to take care of the family.”
He is allowed one 15-minute phone call home every month, if his behaviour is good. If she misses that phone call, she waits for next month.
She says his sentence has since been commuted to 19 years, and then lightened further to 12. Three more years before he can come home.
“He just wanted to go to Sabah to find some work,” she says thinking back. He was supposed to work in a furniture factory. “But then he met some people, these bosses, and he told me he wanted to earn a quick fortune, so he started doing this.”
The bosses have since stopped paying her. According to her, they made vague excuses, then cut off contact a year and a half after the arrest.
But whoever these bosses are, their syndicate has the distinction of being the first syndicate known to supply frozen processed pangolins. And there are signs that they were still in business as recently as February 2019.
That was when Malaysian authorities raided two premises in Kota Kinabalu, Sabah, seizing 27.9 tonnes of frozen, descaled, gutted pangolins in huge freezers. A further 361kg of scales made it the largest pangolin seizure ever recorded.
One of the raided premises, which was identified as the factory where pangolins were processed, is near Sepanggar Port, which is just off the waters where the 2010 smugglers transferred one batch of pangolins.
A source close to the investigations revealed that the manner in which the pangolins were packaged – in layers of plastic bags and boxes – suggests they were meant for export, most likely to China. However, they have yet to confirm if the same syndicate is behind both cases.
One man was arrested, whom the source says was in charge of coordinating local poachers to supply pangolins to the factory, where the animals are processed and frozen.
Lucky for him, he was arrested in Malaysia, where punishments for wildlife trafficking are lighter than China’s. He is now out on bail pending investigations. The bosses are believed to be still at large.