Osaka pet shop owner arrested over illegal purchase of endangered lizard

OSAKA (TR) – Tokyo Metropolitan Police have arrested a 36-year-old pet shop owner in Osaka City for illegally purchasing an extremely rare and endangered lizard native to Australia.

Daiki Uhara, a South Korean national whose real name is Woo Dae-soo, operates a reptile specialty shop in Yodogawa Ward. He is accused of violating the Act on Conservation of Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora by receiving an unregistered Adelaide pygmy blue-tongued skink in a parking lot last December.

Investigators allege Uhara purchased the lizard, along with several others, from another dealer for several million yen. He allegedly completed the transaction fully aware that the reptile lacked the mandatory registration with the Ministry of the Environment. Police believe he intended to flip the endangered animal to a customer for a massive profit.

During police questioning, Uhara partially denied the allegations. “There is no mistake that I received it, but I didn’t know it was a specimen that required registration,” he claimed.

Adelaide pygmy blue-tongued skink (X)

The suspect’s downfall came after he boasted about the illegal acquisition on the shop’s social media accounts.

“You won’t find this even if you search all over Japan,” the shop posted, hyping the animal as a “super rare species that never hits the market!” A vigilant user spotted the post and tipped off the police.

The Adelaide pygmy blue-tongued skink is an incredibly rare species that went unrecorded for over 30 years and was widely presumed extinct until its rediscovery in the 1990s. Australia strictly banned its export in the 1980s, and the species was placed under international trade regulations by the Washington Convention (CITES) three years ago due to rampant smuggling.

The illicit acquisition comes amid an unprecedented reptile boom in Japan. Fueled by the COVID-19 pandemic and the development of artificial feed that eliminates the need for live insects, reptile shops have aggressively expanded, leading to fierce competition.

Wildlife monitoring group WWF Japan strongly condemned the dealer’s actions, noting that the lizard should never have been in Japan and was undoubtedly smuggled.

“The fact that commercial operators are actively complicit in the illegal trade of rare species has been made starkly clear by this incident,” a WWF Japan representative said. “It is a highly critical situation.”

Published in Crime , News and Osaka

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大阪（TR）——东京警视厅逮捕了大阪市一名36岁的宠物店老板，他非法购买了一种原产于澳大利亚的极其稀有且濒危的蜥蜴。

韩国公民宇原大树（真名禹大洙）在淀川区经营一家爬行动物专卖店。他被指控违反《野生动植物濒危物种保护法》，于去年12月在停车场接收了一只未登记的阿德莱德侏儒蓝舌蜥。

调查人员称，宇原某从另一名经销商处购得这只蜥蜴以及其他几只蜥蜴，花费数百万日元。据称，他明知这些爬行动物未在环境省进行强制性登记，却仍然完成了交易。警方认为，他意图将这只濒危动物转手卖给买家，以牟取暴利。

在警方讯问期间，宇原部分否认了这些指控。他声称：“我确实收到了那个样本，但我不知道它是需要登记的样本。”

阿德莱德侏儒蓝舌蜥（X）

嫌疑人之所以落网，是因为他在该商店的社交媒体账户上吹嘘自己非法获取了赃物。

“即使你找遍日本也找不到它，”这家商店在帖子中大肆宣传，称这种动物是“超级稀有物种，从未出现在市场上！”一位细心的网友发现了这条帖子，并向警方举报。

阿德莱德侏儒蓝舌蜥是一种极其罕见的物种，曾有超过30年未被记录，并被广泛认为已经灭绝，直到20世纪90年代才被重新发现。澳大利亚在20世纪80年代严格禁止了该物种的出口，三年前，由于走私猖獗，该物种被列入《华盛顿公约》（CITES）的国际贸易管制范围。

这起非法收购事件正值日本爬行动物市场空前繁荣之际。受新冠疫情和无需活体昆虫的人工饲料发展推动，爬行动物商店迅速扩张，导致竞争异常激烈。

世界自然基金会日本分会强烈谴责了该经销商的行为，并指出这只蜥蜴根本不应该出现在日本，无疑是走私来的。

世界自然基金会日本分会的一位代表表示：“此次事件清楚地表明，商业经营者积极参与了珍稀物种的非法贸易。情况非常危急。”

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