The Baby Monkey Case

April 2001

Since 1997 the International Primate Protection League has been calling for an investigation of a series of monkey shipments from Indonesia to the United States. The Indonesian exporter was the Inquatex firm run by Agus Darmawan and the US purchaser was the firm LABS of Virginia, which holds monkeys at three locations in Hampton and Beaufort Counties, South Carolina, USA.

As yet no charges have been filed against anyone involved in the shipments. The series of shipments started in early 1997. As long-time IPPL members may recall, several of the shipments included baby monkeys and wild-caught animals shipped on misleading Indonesian export permits, claiming that wild-caught animals were captive-born.

At the time of the shipments Indonesia had a ban on export of wild- caught monkeys. The ban had been established in 1994.

On 12 December 1997 two LABS employees, Drs. Patrick Mehlman and Alecia Lilly, were suddenly dismissed. In early 1998 the couple filed a lawsuit against LABS of Virginia and its President David Taub. The lawsuit was adjudicated in Hampton County, South Carolina, and resulted in a $2.3 million judgment against LABS, which the presiding judge later reduced to just over one million dollars.

The US court system requires both parties to lawsuits to produce documents related to the underlying claim. Some of these documents become public information when they are used as court exhibits at trial.

The exhibits found in the Mehlman/Lilly versus LABS trial file offer interesting insights into the sickening international trade in monkeys against which IPPL has fought since it was founded in 1973.

Since learning of the shipments in 1997, IPPL and its members have been pushing for investigation of all involved and prosecution of anyone found to have violated the laws of any country. Our members have flooded the US government with letters and postcards.

The US agency which investigates wildlife shipments is the Division of Law Enforcement of the US Fish and Wildlife Services. However the agency has no power to prosecute. Wildlife prosecutions are handled by the US Department of Justice, which unfortunately often accords them very low priority.

The August 1997 issue of IPPL News (free copy available on request) told about some large shipments of monkeys from Inquatex to LABS. IPPL provided readers with details of two shipments which appeared to violate US Lacey Act regulations which ban the import of baby animals, except for urgent medical care.

Details of two of the shipments follow.

April 10, 1997 shipment

This shipment consisted of 253 animals, of whom 20 were babies shipped with their nursing mothers. Shipping unweaned baby primates is a violation of US regulations and International Air Transport Association (IATA) Guidelines, unless emergency medical circumstances exist.

Some of the babies were just four weeks old. Nineteen monkeys were pregnant. Monkeys as old as 16 years formed part of this shipment, despite Indonesia's ban on export of wild-caught monkeys. It would be highly unlikely for hundreds of monkeys listed as captive-born on shipping documents to have been born in captivity at the exporter's facility between 1981 (the year the oldest monkey was purportedly born) and 1994 (the year Indonesia banned export of wild-caught monkeys).

May 30, 1997 shipment

This shipment consisted of 255 monkeys when it left Jakarta on Air France. There were 19 babies with their mothers and six pregnant monkeys. One baby was just three weeks old. One nursing mother monkey was dead on arrival at Charles de Gaulle Airport, Paris. Her baby was killed. Another monkey escaped. The sub-standard crates were covered in extra chicken wire at Paris to prevent further escapes prior to arrival at Chicago's O'Hare Airport.

Other shipments

IPPL learned of other large Inquatex-LABS monkey shipments. At least one was sent to the Pennsylvania importer Buckshire for quarantine, prior to being sent on to LABS (see document describing the "munchkin" monkeys in one shipment, page 25). Other shipments reached the United States via Los Angeles and Atlanta.

The statute of limitations

At the end of five years, the statute of limitations will expire on the Inquatex-LABS series of shipments. Whether the investigation is being actively pursued or not, IPPL does not know. We do know that the US Fish and Wildlife Service has worked on the case and that a Chicago grand jury studied the case.

In a letter to the Humane Education Network Kevin Adams, Director of the Division of Law Enforcement of the US Fish and Wildlife Service, told an IPPL member:
We can, of course, appreciate your organization's frustration with the apparent lack of progress in what may, on the surface, appear to be an "open and shut" case. The investigation of unlawful primate importations, however, is a difficult and complex task, and wildlife crimes are not always a priority for other components of our legal system [emphasis added].

Read between the lines! Clearly Mr. Adams is hinting that responsibility for the delay in prosecuting the "Baby Monkey" case lies with the US Department of Justice which does not view the case as having high "priority."

LETTERS NEEDED! Please contact the US Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois, with a copy to Eric Holder, Deputy Attorney General of the United States. Tell Mr. Lassar that enforcement of US laws protecting the world's precious wildlife is of VERY high priority to you, and that you are concerned that the investigation of the "Baby Monkey" shipments has now been dragging on for four years. Remind him of the suffering the baby monkeys and pregnant monkeys endured, despite regulations intended to protect them from harm. Request that you be updated on the status of the case. Overseas members should request information from the US Ambassador based in the capital city of your country of residence. Scott R. Lassar US Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois 219 South Dearborn Street, 5th Floor Chicago IL 60604, USA Fax: 312-353-2067 Eric Holder, Deputy Attorney General United States Department of Justice 950 Pennsylvania Avenue NW Washington DC 20530-0001, USA