In 2013, the feds swooped into Northeast Portland and began a multi-year international smuggling investigation.
Undercover agents, stakeouts, covert infiltration, financial records, search warrants, communication snooping, a raid, and a felony conviction—this one had it all. But this time, the feds weren’t after people dealing in drugs, guns, or human trafficking.
They were looking for a plant smuggler.
The Oregon-bound package didn’t make it past a mail-sorting facility in Los Angeles before raising suspicions, according to federal court records.
It was October 2013, and the gift-wrapped box, which bore the nickname of its Malaysian sender, was addressed to a Portland man named Mat Orchard. The feds seized and opened it.
Inside was an unusual kind of contraband.
US Department of Agriculture (USDA) agents found nearly three-dozen of some of the rarest and protected pitcher plants in the world. Inside were 35 Nepenthes rajah with spotty, yellowing leaves, and dirt clinging to their roots, which agents said indicated wild collection. If the plants came from a licensed nursery, there would be better soil.
According to Atlas Obscura, “Nepenthes rajah is the largest of the pitcher plants, and it’s also the largest carnivorous plant in the world.” It’s in the genus Nepenthes, like other bug-consuming plants in and near Southeast Asia.
“It’s essentially a trap filled with up to three and a half liters of digestive fluid,” Atlas Obscura continues. “It evolved to lure insects to it, and when the insects fall in they are unable to escape and are digested by the plant.”
Nepenthes rajah is only found in remote parts of Malaysia. It’s listed among the most endangered plants on Earth by an international government anti-smuggling pact called the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES).
But like many scarce and coveted things, there’s a thriving black market for the plants, and the feds discovered a Portland man was importing Nepenthes rajah to the Pacific Northwest.
According to US Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) Resident Agent Sheila O’Connor the plants “are protected at the highest level.”
“They can’t sustain any commercial trade; they can’t sustain commercial harvest,” O’Connor says. “It’s a countdown to extinction when you’re commercializing these protected species. When you attach money to anything, there will be people out there who collect it until it’s all gone.”
With all this in mind, the feds looked at the suspicious Malaysian package and promptly started an investigation.
On a chilly Saturday afternoon a month later, a stranger walked into a Hollywood neighborhood bar.
He was there to join a casual group of enthusiasts who had been meeting at the Moon and Sixpence pub once a month or so to talk about—and oftentimes show off—their personal plant collections. The meet-up was organized on terraforums.com, an online message board for carnivorous plant (CP) nerds.
“Remember, this is just a casual meeting of like-minded CP enthusiasts and will not have any of the formalities of a CP Society meeting,” wrote “Mato” (Mat Orchard’s screen name) on the site’s message board. He’d posted the previous summer that their three-person club could use more members. “[Our] Portland plant triangle should expand into some sort of multi-sided polygon,” he wrote. “We encourage you to bring a plant or two if you’d like—as we’ll probably do the same—but if not, that’s fine, too.”
Orchard, at the time a skinny and bearded former Portland State student in his late 20s, was devoted to plants and organized his social life around them. In a Facebook post last year, he invited people to join yet another meet-up at the bar.
Plant meeting at the Moon and Sixpence today at 3.
Great way to see plants, talk to people about plants, get drunk off fermented plants… stumble out of the bar and attempt to get a tattoo of plants… make your way to the dispensary to smoke plants… Pass out on the couch covered in pizza slices, your head spinning, haunted by what you don’t remember and the horrible realization that you poisoned your liver just to look at someone’s houseplants.
Repeat in 30 days.
It had been a regular thing—3 pm on the second Saturday of the month, led by Orchard—for nearly a year by the time the stranger showed up in November 2013.
The man walked in and spotted a small group of people and their plants gathered around some tables in the dimly lit pub. He introduced himself to “Mato”—Orchard—who had invited him to join the group.
The new guy asked Orchard if he’d ever seen pitcher plants before—you know, the large carnivorous plants from Southeast Asia.
Orchard pulled out his phone, showing off pictures of Nepenthes rajah: “Yeah, I have those.”
But Orchard’s new acquaintance wasn’t interested in camaraderie or idle chitchat about houseplants.
The man was Special Agent Jimmy Barna of the US Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS). He infiltrated the Portland plant-based social group to find evidence of illegal international plant smuggling by Orchard.
And he succeeded. Very, very slowly.
For an expert, Orchard wasn’t particularly discreet about buying and selling protected plants that require a federal permit. This sloppiness would ultimately earn him a felony conviction.
In October 2013, after the USDA seized the Nepenthes rajah package addressed to Orchard, Los Angeles-based agents forwarded the shipment to Oregon-based FWS agents to investigate.
“It was certainly a plant I had never heard of before,” said the FWS’ O’Connor, who oversaw the investigation. “We didn’t know a lot about this market and wanted to learn what the scope of illegal activity might be: how it’s being used, how it’s getting into the US. It lends itself to undercover work.”
Within days, Agent Barna staked out Orchard’s Northeast Portland apartment. He wrote in an affidavit that he spotted “what appeared to be live pitcher plants in plain view in a window box” of his fourth floor unit. “I also saw heat lights and what appeared to be black plastic inside the windows, which are indicators of a plant growing operation.”
Barna then found Orchard’s Facebook profile and saw he “belonged to several carnivorous plant groups,” including one that meets monthly at the Moon and Sixpence, very near the suspect’s home.
On November 6, the FWS says it delivered a letter informing Orchard that his Nepenthes rajah package was seized in California. It offered him info on the CITES pact and a “buyer beware” brochure.
“I covertly entered the Moon and Sixpence Pub in an attempt to observe the carnivorous plant meetings.”
Three days later, the undercover Barna infiltrated Orchard’s plant group for the first time.
“I covertly entered the Moon and Sixpence Pub in an attempt to observe the carnivorous plant meetings,” he wrote in an affidavit. “I walked by their table, displayed interest in the plants, and was invited to sit with them. I met Orchard and other group members.”
Orchard became Facebook friends with Barna. Or, more accurately, he became Facebook friends with Barna’s alias. Orchard messaged and invited him to the January 2014 meet-up at the pub.
Following that club meeting, Orchard invited the entire plant crew, including the federal agent, back to his apartment—or “Subject Premises” in law enforcement vernacular—to look at more plants. “I agreed,” Barna testified, “and followed Orchard and the group to Subject Premises.”
Inside, he documented greenhouses dedicated to carnivorous plants, with built-in lighting and irrigation systems. He spotted protected plants throughout the one-bedroom apartment.
“I observed several varieties of Nepenthes plants in varying sizes, from seedlings to mature plants with large pitchers,” Barna wrote. “I observed smaller plants which appeared to be the same species grouped together, similar to what I’ve observed in commercial operations. Many plants looked the same as the N. rajah in Orchard’s seized shipment.”
Barna says Orchard pointed the Nepenthes plants out to him. There were roughly 150 of them—and not all were Nepenthes rajah. The agent says Orchard bought and sold other plants from the same protected genus: Nepenthes edwardsiana, Nepenthes hamata, and Nepenthes villosa.
While Barna built his undercover friendship with Orchard, he was also obtaining the suspect’s eBay and PayPal records, and filing a federal search warrant for his email account. The records detailed Orchard’s web of international connections, as well as a history of the purchase and sales of plants he wasn’t allowed to possess: at least 25 separate purchases of protected Nepenthes plants between 2009 and 2014.
Email and PayPal records revealed the identity of his Nepenthes rajah connection—the person who sent the package that was seized. He’d been Orchard’s hookup for years.
The alleged Malaysian smuggler’s Facebook page is still public, with regular posts geo-tagged from Malaysian towns with pictures offering freshly plucked funky flora for sale, soil still clinging to the roots, directing people to message him for details.
Barna connected Orchard to seven accused international plant smugglers in six countries: England, France, Germany, Poland, Indonesia, and, of course, Malaysia. He also found some of Orchard’s buyers in Massachusetts, New York, Michigan, California, and elsewhere in Oregon.
In 2013 alone, Orchard paid $16,741 for Nepenthes plants while selling others for $10,699, according to his financial records.
In November 2014, a year after the suspect first met the undercover Barna at the bar, Orchard brought a box of the protected plants to that month’s meet-up. They were infested with pests.
According to Barna, Orchard was buying more and more plants, and admitted to being less “careful” where they came from. “Now I get the plants from everywhere,” Orchard told the group. “Something must have come in on another plant that was infested.”
The botanist’s apartment was not only filling up with more Nepenthes, but more equipment to help them survive. He spoke of wanting to find a larger apartment to house everything.
Orchard offered to give Barna a Nepenthes miranda cutting. At the July 2015 meet-up, the suspect brought him back to his apartment and the agent again documented an ever-growing plant operation: more terrariums, pots, and growing tents.
Over the next year, Orchard took photos of plants he wasn’t legally allowed to have, posting them on Facebook and Flickr. Barna took screenshots.
At 8:05 a.m. on April 26, 2016—two and a half years after FWS Special Agent Jimmy Barna first went undercover at the Moon and Sixpence—the feds finally raided “Suspect Premises.” They were looking for endangered plants, records of smuggling, and financial information for “Nepenthes Nursery” and “Wistuba Exotics,” the businesses that feds say Orchard was connected to.
They confiscated quite a bit: 377 plants, “plant related documents,” growing supplies, terrariums, incoming and outgoing shipping boxes, and Orchard’s computer, external hard drives, camera, and cell phone.
Then, according to what the Mercury could find, nothing happened with the case for nearly 10 more months. But on February 21, Orchard was indicted on a Lacey Act Violation—essentially a single charge of international protected wildlife smuggling. He pleaded guilty to the felony in May.
Though the investigation lasted several years, the feds only charged Orchard with selling Nepenthes villosa plants valued at more than $350 in November 2014—a sale revealed in the suspect’s email records. He paid his Malaysian supplier $403 for 10 of the plants, and then sold them to his connections around the country over the next month. O’Connor said they talked with a group of Malaysian officials about Orchard’s supplier “a couple months ago.”
“The talks are informal at this point, but we do plan on supplying the Malaysian government with all the information after sentencing.”
“They’re aware of it,” she said. “The talks are informal at this point, but we do plan on supplying the Malaysian government with all the information after sentencing.”
That’s scheduled to happen in August. Orchard faces up to five years in prison—though he’ll probably get probation.
In the meantime, the monthly meet-up of plant geeks at the Moon and Sixpence is still going strong, nearly five years in… though now likely with one fewer smuggler and federal agent. Barna has moved to Georgia, the FWS says.
“Well, this Saturday is the second of the month and you know what that means!” wrote one of Orchard’s friends in June on the terraforums.com meet-up thread. “We will, as always, meet at the Moon and Sixpence pub when it opens at 3:00 P.M. Everyone is welcome! 🙂 ”
I don’t like that this article keeps shoehorning our carnivorous plant meetup in with Matt’s bad choices. It seems to make us out to be villains. Matt’s plant smuggling was completely on his own accord. Most people who attend the meets now don’t even know who Matt is, and many didn’t even know what had happened until he was being investigated.
The article also makes it seem illegal to own Nepenthes. This is 100% false. It is completely legal to own Nepenthes within the US, even sell and trade them within the US. However, it is illegal to import them from outside of the US without proper permits, as the US is part of the CITES agreement, an international agreement, that “protects the plants”. I say “protects” with a bit of facetiousness, because most Nepenthes are threatened simply by the booming human development in the Philippines, poaching is just the icing on the extinction cake. Nepenthes rigidifolia is pretty much considered extinct now and if that plant was ever poached, it was would have gone to collects who lived in its native countries (despite what this article may lead you to believe, the majority of people in the hobby who reside in the US condemn poaching, and word of someone smuggling in poached plants often goes around, and others are warned not to purchase or trade with such an individual). You’ll still see plenty of people posting from Malaysia with plants that are obviously poached, and people will just absolutely tear into them online, but they will continue to poach anyways. Who knows if they are actually punished by their own government. Our CITES agreement pretty much acts the same way as chewing out a poacher online. If we really want to protect the plants, we’d work with the Malaysian government to better protect their native Nepenthes, but there is not really any good economic reason for that, so it probably won’t happen.
Now we’ve got this article that’s probably gonna scare people out of the carnivorous plant hobby, leading newcomers to believe that owning Nepenthes (or even carnivorous plants in general) is an illegal act with serious punishments.
Also, I feel a bit bad that Wistuba is now sort of caught up in this. Wistuba propagates all their plants via tissue culture, and they won’t even ship into the US without proper permits, but it has been included in this article as some other joint in the apparent smuggling operation.
I have to echo Bob here. I found this article to be written with a very poor understanding of plant laws – it is most definitely NOT illegal to possess these plants, the only legal issues arise from international trade without proper paperwork. People import Nepenthes plants from Europe and even from southeast Asia completely legally all the time since the nurseries selling the plants obey CITES regulations.
I also strongly dislike how the article seems to be implying that this group is meeting for some sort of nefarious purpose – it’s simply like-minded plant enthusiasts hanging out at a pub. Nobody else was ever involved with or aware of the criminal activity referenced, and most certainly nobody else was implicated by the investigation.
I am very curious why after that big long investigation and all the apparent evidence why he was only charged with a single Lacey Act violation in the end – that tells me that either the investigation was seriously botched, or that he’s not guilty.
What sensationalist tripe. It reads like a 1980s PSA against drugs, and has about as many facts. I don’t know where to begin.
First of all, one man smuggles plants and you’ve painted an entire field with the same brush. Even the basic description of what a pitcher plant is has been worded in a way that makes it sound like you should keep your children indoors. They’re plants that trap and eat insects. That’s about it. Granted, you took a direct quote from another source but you chose to play up the dark undertones of it.
Next you repeatedly described this quiet group of botanists, and enthusiasts everywhere, as if they’re shady dealers meeting in dark holes in the wall. There’s nothing nefarious about meeting in a pub and chatting about plants, which is exactly what went on at these meetings. Using Mr. Orchard’s casual jokes posted on Facebook about his day dedicated to plants as if he’s some sort of disruptive alcoholic is nitpicky at best. You go on to call him an expert, implying that he’s some sort of master criminal, but it seems fairly clear that he had nothing heinous in mind. This doesn’t excuse his criminal action, he shouldn’t have broken the law, but framing him as the next Capone is just silly.
You mention that he brazenly had plants on display in his window, and that he had various equipment set up to care for these plants, and repeatedly implied that he was running a “growing operation”, which is a term usually applied to large-scale illegal enterprise, but never mention that none of that is illegal. There are hundreds of species of carnivorous plants that are completely legal in the US today and many require lamps and water to survive. Owning these things is not a sign of criminal activity, especially when most of the plants are legal, common and wonderful.
Special Agent Barna certainly doesn’t help. The statement that he “covertly” entered the pub to observe the group is ludicrous. It’s a pub, he walked in and sat down. That along with the constant references to plants he can’t recognise, the quick assumptions that the things he was seeing were shady, constantly calling it an “operation” and “premises”, the confiscation of 377 plants and equipment and references that Mr. Orchard was considering finding a larger residence to accommodate his hobby all make it sound a lot worse than it turned out to be. He talked about Mr. Orchard’s apartment as if it was the Little Shop of Horrors. The “guilty before proven innocent” stance culminates to a single line stating that there was only evidence of a single felony. A single felony. I would love to know how many endangered, completely legal plants were killed in the confiscation.
The fact that you never mention that almost everything listed is legal and innocent has to be the worst part. Mr. Orchard offered an N. miranda to Special Agent Barna, an event you casually passed off as if he’d brazenly given contraband to the very man hired to gather evidence on him, but you don’t mention that N. miranda is one step away from a common houseplant, available in the plant department of various chain stores across the country. Constantly making it sound like these enthusiasts are creepy weirdos looking to grow dangerous plants in a neighbourhood near you!
This is a hobby that involves science, patience and care, and can be so educational and important. And most of the people doing it are just good people with a love of plants. It’s no different from having any houseplants or large garden, apart from a few lamps and a little more reading. And rather than being collectors of rare plants so they can say they owned one before extinction, most of these people are actually conservationists and are responsible for saving many species of plant.
Pepper in some goofy cartoons of people getting eaten by plants and you’ve successfully soured a wonderful hobby for the next generation. Well done.
Terrible article.
1. Wistuba Nursery is owned by Andreas Wistuba. He is in Germany and legally runs a nursery. He has no relation to the criminal mentioned in this article. Get your facts straight.
2. Owning Nepenthes is legal. Buying them is legal. Yes, they are protected by CITES, but in the US there are many resellers of Nepenthes who legally purchase from overseas nurseries using permits. Those overseas nurseries often sell endangered Nepenthes cultivated IN VITRO – this means in a lab using hormones and agar, not by ripping them from the jungle. They are not violating the law. This article makes it sound like Matt and every other person who merely OWNS Nepenthes, ANY Nepenthes, is breaking the law, when they are most certainly not. It is legal to own ““what appeared to be live pitcher plants in plain view in a window box” of his fourth floor unit.” It is also legal to have grow lights and a growing operation in one’s own home. Plenty of people do so for certain plants. Obviously marijuana is illegal to grow in many states but Nepenthes are not cannabis.
3. Most Nepenthes growers are law-abiding citizens who enjoy growing the plants. They strongly condone poaching in all forms, domestic and international.
Overall this is sensationalist writing trying to make it sound like all carnivorous plant growers are shady people who care little for nature and the law, when this is simply not true. Absolutely awful article.
This is terrible journalism completely unconcerned with presenting an accurate portrayal of the Moon and Sixpence meetup and laws surrounding plants. It’s apparent that this author chose to manufacture a shadowy portrait of the meetups in an attempt to make their story more sensational, not to present a news story in a truthful and responsible manner. About the fish and wildlife officer who was offered a miranda cutting…woopty doo. I have a confession to make – I’ve grown a miranda purchased from Home Depot until it was 6ft tall then took cuttings and gave them away. I guess you better cuff me now because apparently this is some kind of shady behavior.
Lumping in the meetup with news of one individual’s actions is like me accusing every contributor to the Mercury of having low journalistic standards just because this one article is so underhanded and misleading.