U.S. Government Puts Alleged Monkey Smuggler on Trial

The fate of an entire species of monkey could be influenced by the outcome of a trial set to start in a U.S. district court in Florida as the federal case against Masphal Kry—a Cambodian citizen and deputy of Cambodia’s Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries—gets underway on Monday, March 11.

Kry is the first individual to be prosecuted by the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) following a five-year investigation by the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service (FWS) into a monkey-smuggling ring that allegedly abducted long-tailed macaques from their forest homes and then falsely identified and sold them as captive-bred, a violation of both the Lacey Act and the federal Endangered Species Act. The monkeys were all destined to be used for experimentation in U.S. laboratories.

The primate experimentation industry is rife with corruption, secrecy, and lawbreaking, and it goes to great lengths to hide what it does to monkeys from the time they’re abducted from their homes until they endure grisly deaths in laboratories. PETA is committed to exposing the truth and ending this nightmare, and we’ll post updates on major developments below as they happen.

In the meantime, please take action today by urging the FWS to include long- and pig-tailed macaques under the Endangered Species Act, a move that should likely greatly restrict their importation into the U.S.

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Trial Background

• Other individuals indicted by the DOJ include another Cambodian government official and the owner and staff of a Cambodian monkey farm.
• PETA believes that Inotiv, which owns two monkey facilities in Alice, Texas, and the Miami-based Worldwide Primates are unindicted coconspirators named in the DOJ’s indictment.
• Other primate importers, including Charles River Laboratories and PreLabs, are referenced among the thousands of pages of evidence.
• Kry’s attorneys tried to suppress evidence, including videos filmed by the U.S. government’s informant in which Kry apparently says, “Do more business … [You will] make more money … if you make another road … for your smuggling.” Allegedly wild-caught monkeys crammed into cages wedged into Kry’s truck are visible in the video.