California big game hunter who tried to sneak endangered sheep carcasses through TSA indicted for smuggling

A Northern California man who was found with the remains of an endangered wild sheep in his luggage at the San Francisco Airport (SFO) was indicted last week on smuggling charges that he and a big game hunting outfitter violated the Endangered Species Act.

Jason Keith Bruce, 49, of Galt in the Central Valley, and Pir Danish Ali, 43, CEO of a hunting outfitter and guide company based in Pakistan, were charged after authorities said they provided investigators with false statements while attempting to smuggle goods through the SFO on March 29, 2018.

On March 24, a federal grand jury returned their indictments. If convicted, the two men face prison time and multiple fines.

The investigation began after Bruce tried to pass through airport customs with eight game trophies (a whole or readily recognizable part of an animal that's kept as a souvenir) in his personal luggage, the Justice Department wrote in a news release.

Both men knew they would have to bribe and commit fraud in order to smuggle the animal back into the U.S. and prepared forged documents that impersonated Pakistani authorities, federal officials said.

Prosecutors said that Bruce killed a Ladakh urial in Pakistan — which has a local population of fewer than 200 animals — and attempted to transport the body back into the U.S. by declaring it a different species.

The urial, which is listed as vulnerable on the IUCN Red List, is an endangered wild sheep native to Central and South Asia. The population and distribution range of Ladakh urial has declined in the last few decades due to illegal hunting and habitat degradation by increasing livestock population and extraction of wood, fodder and medicinal plants, according to a 2016 report by the Zoological Society of Pakistan.

The species had previously been able to "co-exist with the predominantly Buddhist Society of Ladakh, however, the recent increase in the population of both humans and their livestock has placed immense pressures on its habitat," the report claims.

Pir was paid $50,000 to arrange the hunt, prosecutors said.

Further investigation found that at least 25 people associated with Pir’s big game hunting outfitter company presented forged documents to import at least 97 hunting trophies into the U.S. between 2013 and 2018, the Justice Department said.

Both men could face a maximum sentence of five years in prison and a $250,000 fine for the conspiracy charges.

If Bruce is found guilty of smuggling and convicted in violation of the Endangered Species Act, he faces a total of up to $300,000 in fines and additional 21-year prison sentence.

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Camille Fine is a trending visual producer on USA TODAY's NOW team.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Big game hunter indicted for smuggling, endangered sheep found in bags