Hitmen, smugglers, and clams? In his book "Shell Games", Craig Welch tells the story of environmental detectives who are trying to track down smugglers of the geoduck (GOO-EE duck) clam. Host Jeff Young talks with Welch about how the global black market for wildlife has increased the demand for species close to home.
“It would seem to be a familiar tale of tough-guy law enforcement, with a plotline somewhere between "Kojak" and "CSI." Lawmen track down leads, sift through evidence, set up stakeouts, work informers, cut deals with low-lifes and work their way up the food chain to bust the big guys or expose a conspiracy. They do everything that cops do except shoot somebody—and you get the sense that a little bloodshed is within the range of possibility ... Craig Welch tells the oddly riveting story of the black marketeers who trade in geoduck clams and of the law-enforcement officials who go to extraordinary lengths to thwart them.” --The Wall Street Journal
“Endlessly fascinating ... Welch is a superb reporter, and the book is never dull because the material is so rich.” -- The Seattle Times
"Reads like a spy novel."-- SmartMoney
Shell Games is a cops-and-robbers tale set in a double-crossing world where smugglers fight turf wars over some of the world's strangest marine creatures.
Puget Sound sits south of the border between the U.S. and Canada and is home to the magnificent geoduck (pronounced "gooey duck"), the world's largest burrowing clam. Comically proportioned but increasingly fashionable as seafood, the geoduck has been the subject of pranks, TV specials, and gourmet feasts. But this shellfish is so valuable it is also traded for millions of dollars on the black market— a world where outlaw scuba divers dodge cops while using souped-up boats, night-vision goggles, and weighted belts to pluck the succulent treasures from the sea floor. And the greatest dangers come from rival poachers who resort to arson and hit men to eliminate competition and stake their claim in the geoduck market.
Detective Ed Volz spent his life chasing elk-antler thieves, bobcat smugglers, and eagle talon poachers. Now he was determined to find the kingpin of the geoduck underworld. He and a team of federal agents set up illegal sales, secretly recorded conversations, and photographed hand-offs from the bushes. For years, they tracked a rogues' gallery of lawbreakers, who eventually led them to the biggest thief of all— a darkly charming con man who called himself the "GeoduckGotti" and who worked both sides of the law.
In Shell Games, veteran environmental journalist Craig Welch delves into the wilds of our nation's waters and forests in search of some of America's most unusual criminals and the cops who are on a mission to take them down. This thrilling examination of the international black market for wildlife is filled with butterfly thieves, bear slayers, and shark-trafficking pastors— all part of one of the largest illegal trades in the world.
