Operation Atacama: The $1m cactus heist that led to a smuggler's downfall
After thousands of rare Chilean cacti were found in the house of an Italian collector, a years-long trial slowly unravelled how they got there.
Hasnain says:
“Sometimes the volunteers hide their favourite plants under rock slates to conceal them from potential poachers. Since the cacti tend to have highly localised endemisms with small populations found only in specific sites, poachers can wipe out a whole species with a couple of flicks of a chisel, they say.
An increase in road construction and irregular housing has allowed more and more people to access the harsh and secluded desert habitat where Copiapoa live. "You open the window for poaching," says Pablo Guerrero, a cactus researcher at the Universidad de Concepción in Chile. Social media has also made it easier for collectors to find each other, while regulation and enforcement are much slower to catch up.
"Most countries in the world are very naive in the face of this kind of poaching," says Guerrero. "They say, 'They're plants, who cares, they're cacti, they all look the same'."”