Antiques dealer Xiao Ju Guan admits trafficking rhino horns

A Vancouver-area antiques dealer swept up in a US crackdown on illegal trafficking in rhinoceros horns pleaded guilty to a wildlife smuggling charge.

Canadian Xiao Ju Guan, also known as Tony Guan, entered the plea on Tuesday to a count of attempted smuggling in federal court in Manhattan. Sentencing was set for next spring, when he faces up to 10 years in prison.

Guan, who remains incarcerated, admitted that he tried in March to smuggle two black rhinoceros horns from New York to British Columbia, where he intended to sell them at a store.

The 39-year-old Richmond, BC, resident owns an antiques business. He said he had smuggled more than US$400,000 of rhino horns and sculptures made from elephant ivory and coral from US auction houses to Canada.

"I knew I was violating the law," Guan told US District Judge Laura Taylor Swain. "I attempted to mislabel them."

Authorities said Guan bought the rhinoceros horns in New York from US Fish and Wildlife Service undercover agents who drove him and a female accomplice acting as his interpreter to a nearby express mail store, where he mailed the horns to Washington state, near the Canadian border and 27km from his business.