the historical past of a unlawful $ 1 million market | EUROtoday

On Mar 12, 2025

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LE new Eldorado of prison organizations now discover it … within the Chilean desert? An unprecedented trial, stories the BBC, highlighted a juicy site visitors round … uncommon Chilean cacti. And as in any unbelievable historical past, it takes a protagonist. This one is Italian and is named Andrea Piombetti.

His Facebook profile photograph confirms it: he’s a cactus lover, which he has collected and which he has traded for a number of a long time. His standing WhatsApp signifies: “The king of the pirates of the cacti”. During his wanderings, he’s interested in a really particular sort of cactus: copiapoa. This very uncommon selection is made up of greater than thirty species and is just present in Chile. Its tradition may be very delicate, therefore its rarity.

Read too We pique it for cactiWhat is uncommon is treasured, and Andrea Piombetti doesn’t ignore it. In 2013, customs at Milan Malpensa airport intercept an uncommon cargo: 143 cactus. Their phytosanitary paperwork had been falsified. They are supposed for the collector’s home, in Senigallia, close to Ancône. Experties assist certify that cacti, older than Piombetti, have been illegally extracted.

More than a thousand cacti at residence

A primary warning for the receipt, who sees the limitation interval of the case expiring earlier than the decision and the case be labeled with out comply with -up. What to calm the ardor of the transalpine? Far from it. And it’s a competitors of circumstances that may enable the police to get their fingers on a staggering booty in February 2020.

Simone Cecchini, chief of the commerce unit of endangered species from the native police, strikes to Piombetti’s residence, for what’s then solely a banal go to after the criticism of a botanist, who accuses him of getting stolen a uncommon plant from him. But the accused barricades himself at residence for ten minutes, says Lieutenant-Colonel.

Read too The scary disappearance of butterflies within the United StatesStrange, for a innocent lacin. Upon getting into, the police discover the rationale for such habits: Piombetti has greater than a thousand cactus Copiapoa on his veranda and in one other room, locked. The knowledge discovered in your laptop permit you to hint an area confederate, Mattia Crescentini, a community of ten different plant traffickers and ten common gamers.

A 5 -year trial

A purchaser despatched round 2,500 euros monthly to Piombetti to supply cactus. In complete, evaluating the police, the stolen crops found that day are price round $ 1 million. “These plants were incredible, they were old, old in several hundred years,” mentioned Cattabriga, an area skilled in cactus.

Andrea Piombetti then goes to the entrance of massive troubles: if the gathering of seeds within the wild isn’t unlawful, the pattern and the export of crops with out acceptable documentation are. In addition, Copiapoa are protected by the International Trade Convention for Species of Wild Wild flora and flora threatened with extinction (CITES).

Read too Fire water: explanations or … hypotheses? In 2020, the Italian authorities launched new lawsuits towards Piombetti and its confederate for violation of the Convention. The trial will final 5 years. He was sentenced, on the finish of January 2025, to eighteen months in jail and 25,000 euros wonderful. His colleague is sentenced to 12 months in jail and 18,000 euros wonderful. But that is not all.

An endangered species

To uncover

The kangaroo of the day

Answer

In September 2024, nonetheless awaiting a judgment, Piombetti left for Chile. Where he was additionally needed for unlawful site visitors of untamed species. After a fast trial, he was sentenced to a wonderful of round 5,000 euros, with a ban on getting into the nation for ten years. The cacti are actually present in a greenhouse within the Atacama desert managed by the National Forest Society of Chile (CONAF), though some native stories counsel that sure crops could have disappeared.

Read too Why is cypress pollen so allergenic? In addition, “most countries of the world are very naive in the face of this type of poaching. They say: “They are crops, we do not care, they’re cacti, all of them look alike”, regrets Pablo Guerrero, researcher on cacti on the University of Conceptcion in Chile. Due to the rise in temperatures within the desert, the species is more and more threatened. Will his enterprise definitively condemn him?

https://www.lepoint.fr/environnement/trafic-de-cactus-l-histoire-d-un-marche-clandestin-a-1-million-de-dollars-11-03-2025-2584487_1927.php