A 40-year-old Irish man has been sentenced to 18 months in prison in the United States for his role in smuggling rhinoceros horn.
Michael Hegarty, part of international criminal gang the Rathkeale Rovers, pleaded guilty to the charges and was sentenced in a federal court in Miami.
Judge Donald Middlebrooks sentenced Hegarty to 18 months in prison, followed by three years of supervised release.
Hegarty, another man Richard Sheridan, and a third man from Florida, were originally charged with conspiring to traffic a libation cup made from endangered rhino horn, with smuggling the cup to the UK and with obstructing justice for attempting to influence a witness.
Hegarty was arrested on 19 January in Belgium and was extradited to the US in July.
His arrest was part of Operation Crash, a US-wide crackdown on criminal trafficking in rhinoceros horn.
In Hegarty’s case, he and another man purchased the libation cup in North Carolina and then transported it to Florida, where they falsified papers to smuggle it out of the US.
Other members of the gang were arrested in London as they were trying to sell the rhino horn cup to a Hong Kong native.
Speaking after the sentence was handed down, Acting Chief of Law Enforcement Ed Grace said that the sentencing sent “a message to those who profit from the slaughter and illicit trade of wildlife, you will be caught and prosecuted no matter where you hide”.
Source: RTE.IE
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