Elephant Ivory Confiscated to the Tune of $4.5 Million From Midtown Antique Store

MIDTOWN, MANHATTAN — The Manhattan District Attorney's office on Thursday announced the seizure of $4.5 million in illegal elephant ivory, the largest in New York State history. Metropolitan Fine Arts & Antiques Inc. and three of its sellers were charged with two counts of illegal commercialization of wildlife in a case that Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus R. Vance, Jr. called "abhorrent."

"As the international elephant population hovers near extinction, too many ivory traders continue to profit from the slaughter of these beautiful, defenseless animals," Vance said. "My office and our DEC [Department of Environmental Conservation] partners will do everything we can locally to protect this endangered species and end this moral, ecological and geopolitical crisis."

Metropolitan Fine Arts & Antiques, located at 10 W. 57th St. between Fifth and Sixth avenues, had approximately 126 elephant ivory articles for sale, police found when they searched the premises. These 126 articles included two pairs of elephant tusks, one of which the DEC determined was a young adult when it died. The price tags on the tusks were $200,000 and $150,000.

The New York Department of Environmental Conservation obtained a search warrant for the antique store on Nov. 30, 2015, after undercover officers bought an elephant ivory carving from a salesman there. The salesman, Victor Zilberman, told them the carving was made of mammoth ivory. Upon analyzing the carving, the officers found it was actually made of elephant ivory.

Under the New York State Environmental Conservation Law, it's illegal to put elephant ivory up for sale if you don't have a license from the Department of Environmental Conservation. The restrictions on permits granted by the department were severely tightened in 2014, and the sellers at Metropolitan Fine Arts & Antiques never obtained an updated permit after the new rules were established.

The elephant population in Tanzania's largest protected area has diminished by 90 percent in fewer than 40 years due to ivory poaching, according to a study released this year by the World Wildlife Fund. Worldwide, the illegal ivory trade is still worth billions of dollars, experts say.

The ivory items confiscated from the antique store are to be crushed as part of Ivory Crush on World Elephant Day in August 2017.

Image credit: Public domain