A sealed package bound for overseas.
Inside, a DVD player.
And inside that, wrapped in a black sock and bound with tape, a native Australian shingleback lizard – stuffed into a space between wires and plastic.
It sounds improbable, but Australian border authorities intercept hundreds of attempted wildlife exports each year, more than four decades after Australia banned the commercial export of native wildlife.
Wildlife ecologist Adam Toomes, the Co-Chair of the Coalition to Address Reptile and Amphibian Trade, explained that smugglers will often exploit the very traits that allow these animals to survive in the wild.
“Typically they are stuffed in some kind of commodity like rice cookers or pringle packets,” he said.
“I’ve even seen one skink inside of a laptop, because they are known for their ability to dorsally flatten themselves and squeeze into rock crevices in their natural habitat.”
Reptiles in particular can become targets because of their biology. As ectotherms, they can survive periods of lower activity and fluctuating temperatures, allowing them to move through international postal systems in conditions that would kill most creatures.
Not all of the reptiles survive, but traffickers only need a few to turn a profit.
Just last month, a 28-year-old Chinese National, Yang Zeng was sentenced in Penrith District Court, after being convicted of 9 counts relating to the export of turtles, lizards, and tree frogs.
Between 2024 and 2025, Zeng used third-party international mail logistics businesses, parcel lockers, and couriers to post native animals from Sydney to Hong Kong.
The animals were concealed in socks and hosiery, wrapped in foil, and hidden inside food packaging.
According to the Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water (DCCEEW), Zeng’s case was one of 113 attempted wildlife exports seized at the border in the last year – totalling 1,250 native specimens intercepted before they could reach the overseas illegal trade.
Whilst interceptions fluctuate year to year, the broader trend points to a persistent challenge.
Researchers believe the spike in 2023, and the elevated figures that followed, likely reflect both an increase in trafficking activity and a significant boost to detection capability.
The most comprehensive picture of where these animals end up comes from a 2024 study from the University of Adelaide.
Over four years, lead researcher Sebastian Chekunov and his team – including Adam Toomes – tracked the sale of Australian reptiles and amphibians across the internet, from eBay listings to social media pages.
The team identified 170 Australian species for sale overseas – more than ten percent of all Australian endemic reptiles.
Most troubling to the researchers: 33 had never been recorded on the international market before.
Dr Chekunov said the animals typically head to Hong Kong first, usually dispatched from Sydney or Melbourne.
“From there, the trail leads to Central Europe, particularly Germany, before filtering into North America,” he said.
The 2024 study catalogued prices of between $30 and $15,000 per animal.
Animals leave Australia through airports, in people’s luggage and on their person, as well as through permit fraud.
In one high-profile case, 232 rare parrots were legally exported to a Berlin organisation registered as a zoo – later found to have no public facilities, which was headed by a convicted criminal.
However, Dr Toomes believes the postal system remains the most exploitable pathway.
“With the sheer volume of exports, border force operates on a risk optimisation framework where they essentially triage and try to scan for high risk commodity types,” he said.
“They are balancing wildlife trade with drugs and weapons and all sorts of things.”
But Dr Chekunov said enforcement is changing.
“Five years ago, most people were getting really small fines, $1,000 maximum maybe, and then the animals they’re smuggling could be worth ten times that overseas. So the benefits outweighed the risk,” he said.
Dr Chekunov has spent the past year working directly with prosecutors to change the perception of the seriousness of wildlife crime.
“So when reptile smugglers are being charged, the courts can look at the actual value of the things they’ve been smuggling and use that to increase the sentence,” he said.
“It’s not just an animal – it’s Australian property that’s worth tens of thousands of dollars.”
Part of what makes prosecution so difficult is the structure of the trade itself. The people poaching or caught at the border are typically receiving the smallest profit margin.
Dr Chekunov said those at the top of the network are often overseas and largely untouchable.
“A lot of the time they use international students to do the smuggling – they are more likely to be motivated by the money, or organisers can use the visa side of things to pressure them,” he said.
Dr Toomes said the typical buyer is someone in a wealthy, urbanised country – increasingly disconnected from the natural world and drawn to the novelty of owning something rare.
“They have a fascination with any facet of uniqueness – distinct spines, unusual colour or a contrasting pattern,” he said.
“Or it may look plain but it’s only found in one particular part of outback Australia and hardly anyone in the world has seen it in the wild, let alone has it as a pet.”
The shingleback lizard, the same species found crammed inside that DVD player, is one of the most commonly trafficked Australian animals.
According to a 2021 study by Monitor Conservation Research Society, more than 500 have been seized during the past decade – though not all were confirmed as destined for overseas markets.
Of the 263 seized in confirmed export attempts, the destinations reveal the reach of the trade.
Whilst regularly poached, the shingleback is widespread enough that the species as a whole is not under immediate threat.
Dr Chekunov said the main concern lies with the smaller, localised populations.
“The more desirable shingleback lizards are the really small specific populations that are only found in certain areas,” he said.
“For example, there is a population only found on Rottnest Island, and they are sort of a green colour so people think they are really cool and want those ones.”
Isolated populations, like the shingleback skink, are also the most vulnerable to poaching damage.
“Poachers aren’t gentle,” Dr Chekunov said.
“They’ll break up rocks and dig up the ground – and that can mess things up for everything that uses that area.”
Proving that an animal has been taken from the wild, rather than legally captive-bred, has long been one of the most stubborn evidentiary gaps in wildlife prosecutions.
UNSW Sydney researcher, Dr Kate Brandis is working to close it.
Her team has developed a technique that analyses chemical markers in keratin (feathers, quills and scales) to determine, with more than 96 per cent accuracy, whether an animal has been eating a wild or captive diet. In practice, it fills a gap that forged paperwork has long exploited
“One of the key challenges is getting new technological methods accepted by the courts as a reliable and accurate source of evidence,” Dr Brandis said.
“This process can take a very long time and requires a lot of research.”
Even if the science improves, researchers say the deeper problem is jurisdictional. Once an animal leaves Australia, the law cannot follow it.
“Someone trading a knob-tail gecko in Germany is not breaking any German laws,” Dr Toomes said.
“So there is this unfortunate loophole- unless you are detected at the point of harvest or the point of export, there’s a limited amount that Australian authorities can do.”
Currently, the international framework meant to fill the gap – the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) – covers only a fraction of the animals being traded.
Dr Toomes points to two structural changes that could shift the dynamic. The first is wider adoption of the US’s Lacey Act, which criminalises the import of any wildlife obtained in violation of the laws of its country of origin.
The second is a move away from negative lists – where everything is permitted unless explicitly banned – toward positive lists, where only pre-approved species can be traded.
And, it is a change that is already beginning to happen. The Netherlands recently agreed to introduce a positive list for mammals, with reptiles to follow.
For Dr Toomes, it is evidence that the tide is turning.
“We are headed in the right direction,” he said.
“But it’s only been doing that because advocacy groups, researchers, and members of the public are all coming together and pushing in a unified direction.”
For now, though, the trade continues to move quietly – through freight networks, parcel systems, and legal grey areas.
And somewhere, in a warehouse, cargo hold, or ordinary postal package, another animal waits hidden among everyday objects.
