Egg-on-face sting a budgie smuggle flop

A macaw fetches $30,000 on the black market in AustraliaVICTORIA'S wildlife authority has egg on its face after shutting down a bungled six-year investigation into an alleged international bird-egg smuggling syndicate operating out of the state's north.

Bird breeders say the failed operation by the Department of Sustainability and Environment wasted several hundred thousand dollars chasing ''rumours and innuendo'' without a single prosecution.

Documents obtained by The Sunday Age reveal the probe, code-named Operation Janitor, was botched from the start.

The department claims the bird-egg smuggling syndicate has been active in northern Victoria since 1999, using couriers wearing modified vests and underwear to smuggle up to 500 bird eggs a month in and out of Australia. Profits from one overseas trip were said to be more than $300,000.

Eight people allegedly linked to the syndicate were arrested in 2005 and charged with conspiracy to control wildlife under the Victorian Crimes Act.

But department documents obtained through freedom of information show the charges were dropped when prosecutors realised the accused should have been charged under federal wildlife laws. The entire case then fell apart in September last year when the Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions advised there was insufficient evidence to mount a successful prosecution.

A department spokeswoman confirmed on Friday that Operation Janitor had since been shut down and monitoring of the alleged syndicate's movements stopped.

She refused to say how much money was spent on the failed operation. The department would continue to investigate any unlawful wildlife activities, she said.

But Avicultural Federation of Australia president Lou Dall'Est accused investigators of wasting time and money probing ''rumours and innuendo'' when most bird breeders acted legally.

''We're just working-class people who do this as a hobby,'' he said. ''I don't know if there's a syndicate operating or not but it looks as though it's all been blown out of proportion.''

The department had claimed more than 40 native bird eggs at a time were being smuggled out of the country and exchanged for rare bird eggs such as macaws, Moluccan and umbrella cockatoos, Amazon parrots and conures. The exotic eggs were then smuggled back into Australia and the birds raised before being sold on the black market.

Authorities linked the syndicate to smuggling gangs in other Australian states, as well as in South Africa, the Philippines and Singapore, claiming it disguised its operations through legitimate bird-breeding businesses, fake record books and remote storage sites.

The public was first alerted to the alleged syndicate's existence in September 2004, when customs officers announced they had disrupted ''an international wildlife smuggling racket'' after raids on five rural properties across Australia, including two in Bendigo.

Up to 1000 birds were found on the Bendigo properties but only seven parrots, believed to have been illegally imported, and a number of eggs were seized. No arrests were made.

Subsequent raids were carried out in Gippsland and central Victoria in December 2005.

Forty officers searched six properties and inspected exotic and native bird collections at another 10 properties. Computers and documents seized during the raids were expected to identify the syndicate members and their financial backers.

Eight people were charged under the Victorian Crimes Act with conspiracy to control wildlife, but authorities encountered problems when compiling the prosecution briefs. The maximum penalty for wildlife trafficking under federal laws is 10 years' jail and a $110,000 fine.