[Basic Case]
Since 2014, the defendant Sun Mouyan has illegally acquired various shark teeth including white shark , lemon shark, mahogany , and tiger shark without the approval of the wild animal and plant authorities and without obtaining aquatic wildlife business and utilization license. After processing, it has been sold to unspecified buyers at home and abroad for profit through online platforms. In October 2020, in order to further determine the species attributes and protection level of the great white shark teeth he acquired and sold, Sun Mouyan commissioned an identification center to conduct identification. The identification result was human-eating shark . Since then, Sun Mouyan continues to sell various shark teeth and related products, including great white shark teeth, until he was arrested in April 2021. After identification, the case involved 6,389 human-eating shark teeth, a national second-class protected wild animal, worth 3.1945 million yuan, and a human-eating shark jaw bone worth 85,000 yuan, totaling 3.2795 million yuan.
[Result]
The People's Court of Tong'an District, Xiamen City, Fujian Province held in the first instance that the defendant Sun Mouyan violated the national wildlife protection regulations and illegally purchased and sold precious and endangered wild animal human-eating shark products with a value of 3.2795 million yuan, which constituted the crime of endangering precious and endangered wild animals. Considering that Sun Mouyan did not have the circumstances of severe punishment, and did not cause animal death or the animals or animal products to be recovered, he confessed truthfully after being arrested, pleaded guilty and accepted punishment, and most of the stolen goods involved in the case had been recovered, Sun Mouyan was sentenced to 6 years and 7 months in prison and a fine of 150,000 yuan. The illegal gains returned in the case and the seized items such as the human-eating shark teeth were confiscated. The first-instance judgment has taken legal effect.
[Typical Significance]
Human-eating Shark is also known as "Great White Shark". It belongs to the endangered wild animals in Appendix II of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora and the second-class protected wild animals in my country's "National List of Key Protected Wild Animals". The human-eating shark is the "umbrella protector" in the ocean. Its habitat needs can cover the habitat needs of other species. By protecting the human-eating shark, it can also provide protection for other species in the ocean, which is conducive to maintaining the balance of marine biodiversity. In this case, the people's court applied the new judicial interpretation of criminal cases of destroying wild animal resources in accordance with the law. It not only took value as the basic conviction and sentencing standard, but also comprehensively considered the relevant circumstances of the case, comprehensively evaluated the social harm, and explained the criminal judicial concept of punishing crimes in accordance with the law and combining leniency and severity. By severely cracking down on crimes that endanger precious and endangered wild animals and their products, our country's responsibility to fulfill its international environmental treaty obligations and protect endangered wild animals has fully demonstrated. The verdict in this case has been reported by many media, promoting the public to understand the fierce and fragile large aquatic wild species of great white shark, which is of positive significance to guiding the people to establish a correct view of ecological civilization and promote the national action of biodiversity protection.
Source: Supreme People's Court
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