Inspired by HBO’s series Monsters of God, Nadia Lee Cohen and Charlie Denis made a short film about the OG hype beasts: reptile smugglers. Lizard Hunter depicts a law enforcement raid on an illegal exotic animal operation, and features a ton of highly aesthetic biological pirate material.
You can watch Lizard Hunter exclusively in the VICE.com player below, read what it taught us about how to make it big in the endangered species trade, and see all of Nadia’s amazing photographs to boot. Don’t say we never do anything for you.
Film by Nadia Lee Cohen and Charlie Denis
Script by Ben Aaron Cohen
Starring Jimmy O Yang
Produced by BADFOOT
Be a ‘Character’
Be morbidly obese with a slogan T. Dress like Fu Manchu if he collected Prada. Have a crazy beard. Wear head-to-toe orange-dyed gator skin. Bedeck yourself in comic levels of jewelry. The characters of the reptile-smuggling underworld are as theatrical as the unfortunate specimens they trade in, and probably just as likely to eat each other if left in a room unattended.
Befriend Drug Smugglers
There are reasons mammals aren’t as desirable as endangered iguanas: for a start, a really rare mouse won’t survive in a sock stuffed down the front of your Calvins for the duration of a 15-hour plane ride. Smugglers of all varieties have been concocting wily methods to hide contraband for centuries; see what you can learn from them and maybe even team up, there is a significant Venn diagram overlap between reptile collectors and cocaine enthusiasts.
Have a Death Wish
Reptiles are appealing to a certain demographic because they are rare like a watch, dangerous like a gun, and forbidden like a trafficked sex slave. And addictive, to some, although it probably takes a certain type of autist to get addicted to collecting cold-blooded animals that can kill you with a single bite. Traders have been known to murder journalists by leaving a snake in a mailbox. There aren’t many other collectible items that double as autonomous kill systems.
Be Incredibly Greedy
Reptiles are like living gems that can kill you. Smuggled out of exotic locations and conflict zones, the more endangered the better. Somewhat like blood diamonds, the knowledge that a non-zero degree of cruelty has gone into acquiring them gives them a hugely inflated value. There is no size of lab-grown diamond that will genuinely impress a woman, but if she knows at the back of her mind that a Congolese child may have died for it, she will cherish it forever. The same is true of sociopathic men and lizards.
REALLY Love Reptiles
Say what you like about career criminals profiting off the trade of endangered species, one thing they genuinely seem to care about is reptiles. They clean them and brush them and love them. Maybe there’s some sort of mirroring / projection going on: the only earthly entity they can form a loving relationship with is something as callous as they are. That aside, it takes a true obsessive to build an international criminal network of any sort… What happens to the poor little fellas when they reach the end user is another story.
Follow Nadia Lee Cohen on Instagram @nadialeecohen
The post The VICE Guide to Being a Reptile Smuggler, With Nadia Lee Cohen and Charlie Denis appeared first on VICE.
