Man faces
smuggling chargesThe grand jury alleges "Dusty"
Gruver and his brother illegally
imported animal parts
A Maunalani Heights man faces federal criminal charges for allegedly smuggling the body parts of endangered tigers, leopards, bears, hornbills, orangutans and monkeys.
In a 12-count indictment on Wednesday, a federal grand jury said that D.M. "Dusty" Gruver and his brother Jackson Muldoon, of Oregon, illegally imported dozens of protected animals' parts from Malaysia, China, Nepal, Thailand and the Philippines for sale on the mainland.
Gruver, 59, heads locally based Tribal Artifacts Inc., whose Web site markets rare Asian wood carvings and jewelry, ceramics and artifacts made of the body parts of endangered species, the grand jury said.
Gruver could not be reached for comment. His Web site says that Tribal Artifacts specializes in unique artifacts from diverse Southeast Asian cultures.
The Web site also says that the company's products are collected personally by Gruver during his regular trips to Asia.
According to the grand jury, Gruver collected the animal artifacts from a Malaysian source who would ship them to Muldoon's nursery in Oregon in an attempt to evade scrutiny by U.S. Customs officials.
Gruver disguised some artifacts like hornbill skulls by staining them with purple juice to make them look like wood carvings, the grand jury said.
He also attempted to doctor wooden cultural artifacts with liquid smoke to give the artifacts an authentic feel, the grand jury said.
"And, often as not, that wood smoke ... smell will make the sale, after the correct 'look' has already captivated the collector," Gruver said in an e-mail obtained by federal investigators.
The federal case, headed by Assistant U.S. Attorney Leslie Osborne, got a break when U.S. Customs officials intercepted a December 1998 package from Malaysia to Gruver that contained two hornbill skulls and two tiger teeth.
Federal investigators later set up a sting in which agents bought several artifacts made from endangered species from Gruver's Web site. In one instance, customs agents acquired a helmeted hornbill ivory ear weight from Gruver by bidding on it on eBay, the grand jury said.
The rare animals and their body parts are protected by an international treaty known as the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora, or CITES. The sale and importation into the United States of most of the species protected by the treaty is a federal offense.
