Molt was gifted at rustling up financing and labour for hunting expeditions in Fiji and New Guinea, but repeatedly scuttled his own projects, usually trying to scam his partners. (fetching up to $12,000 a head), lost small fortunes thanks to greed, negligence and alcohol. “The thing you have to understand,” Molt once told Smith, “is that we’re not good people.”īut neither were they particularly good at being “bad.” Molt and Crutchfield, frenemies who throughout the ’70s, ’80s and ’90s smuggled the world’s rarest reptiles into the U.S. Notorious snake rebels such as Hank Molt, Tom Crutchfield and Anson Wong were unflinchingly honest with the science reporter about how they lied to, swindled-and on occasion nearly killed-their customers, staff, wives and, most especially, each other. It’s a quality that helped endear some otherwise slippery characters to Smith during the decade she devoted to researching Stolen World. But, almost without exception, the “he-men” who deal in contraband cobras-no matter how gnarly their tattoos or greasy their ponytails-were once little boys who geeked out over snakes. Little boys who chase snakes do not all grow up to be reptile smugglers.
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