A Miami Beach artist who specializes in taxidermy pieces that incorporate animals skins and parts pleaded guilty to trafficking in protected wildlife Tuesday.
Enrique Gomez De Molina, 48, faces five years behind bars and a $250,000 fine at his sentencing, scheduled for March 2, according to the Miami Herald.
According to the U.S. Attorney's Office, De Molina was involved in illegal wildlife trafficking activities dating back to 2009, through contacts in Bali, Indonesia, Thailand, the Philippines, Canada, and China.
Items included parts of whole cobras, pangolins, hornbills, and the skulls of babirusa and orangutans. De Molina was also found with the skins of a Java kingfisher and a collared kingfisher, one mounted lesser bird of paradise, the skin of a juvenile hawk-eagle, the carcass remnant of a slow loris, and the carcass remnant of a lesser mouse deer.
Many of the animals are protected, meaning their trade is subject to strict regulation.
Two shipments to De Molina were intercepted in 2009, but "De Molina continued to solicit protected wildlife from his suppliers via the Internet, and to select specific animals from photographs provided to him," a statement released by the U.S. Attorney's Office last week read. "The parts or carcasses of the wildlife he selected would then be shipped to him without the permits or declarations required by law."
De Molina used the animal parts in his art pieces, which he assembled at a downtown Miami studio, the statement said. The pieces sold for as much as $80,000.
Last December, some of De Molina's pieces were displayed at Art Basel, resulting in a "significant sale and the subsequent illegal export of the piece to the Canada," the statement said.
