The Fantastical Story of the 'Pablo Escobar of Eggs'

Jeffrey Lendrum is the world's most notorious rare-egg smuggler. Dubbed "the Pablo Escobar of eggs" due to his extensive career in stealing and transporting the eggs of endangered birds, he was recently jailed for three years after being found at Heathrow airport with £100,000 worth of eggs concealed under his clothing, having been convicted of similar offences in 2010 and 2015.

Although it might seem like a less risky alternative to drug smuggling, egg smuggling is often wrought with danger. Lendrum – who has dual Zimbabwean and Irish nationality – has travelled to some of the most inhospitable places on earth in search of particularly hard-to-come-by eggs, and dangled from a rope suspended from a helicopter in order to pilfer them. He is, by all accounts, a master egg thief – not that it's anything to be proud of, given the precarious existence of some of the species he's targeted.

American journalist Joshua Hammer is working on a book about Lendrum. I got in touch to find out more.

VICE: Why do you think Lendrum's gained so much more notoriety than other wildlife smugglers?
Joshua Hammer: First of all, he's been doing it since the 1980s, so almost 40 years. He also goes to bizarre, far-flung corners of the world and steals the eggs in very difficult conditions, involving serious climbs and helicopters. He then crosses international boundaries with these fragile eggs, somehow managing to keep them alive. He's a double threat – a thief and a smuggler, and seeming to excel at both.

What inspired you to write a book about him?
I read a piece in the Times about him and it captured my imagination. I originally pitched a magazine piece to Outside [a magazine for fans of the outdoors], and ended up going to the Rhonda Valley in Wales to hang out with these National Wildlife Crime Unit guys who were retracing Lendrum's steps. I was struck by the sense of adventure in the story and the characters of both Lendrum and the cops. After that trip, I began to think that Lendrum's story could be expanded into a book. It's probably going to be called The Falcon Thief, and is likely to be out in January or February, 2020.

I heard you got to question Lendrum in person while researching the book. What was he like?
He was a very low-key, likeable guy, and friendly as can be.

How lucrative a profession is egg smuggling?
This is a question I've not been able to get a clear answer to. You'd think Lendrum would be rolling in money, because it's been reported that the wild gyrfalcon eggs he stole can sell for $400,000 (£301,458). I’ve heard this from a couple of captive breeders who know both the legitimate business and the black market, but Lendrum never appeared to have a lot of money. He had a decent car and a part interest in a plane, but didn't have an extravagant lifestyle.

What methods did he use to steal and smuggle the eggs?
On a trip to Northern Quebec, he employed a helicopter, dangled from a rope, swooped in and snatched the eggs out of their nest. Another method he uses involves planting a belay [device for controlling a rope during rock climbing] at the top of a cliff, working his way down, snatching the eggs and either continuing down to the bottom, where a helicopter is waiting, or if the helicopter can't land at the bottom, climbing back up to the top.

He's reported as having been in the Rhodesian SAS. Do you think his training helped with the egg thefts?
He wasn't actually in the SAS; that’s a lie he told. When he was confronted with this he backed off and said he didn’t actually complete the training and that he would have finished it, but had got ill. He appears to have been in another, less elite, unit of the Rhodesian army.

How common a crime is rare-egg smuggling? Did he have many competitors?
It's hard to say, because there haven’t been many cases of people being caught doing it. It seems that people are either very good at it and are getting eggs through without anyone knowing, or it doesn't happen much at all.

Who usually buys the eggs?
The buyers mainly seemed to be in the Middle East – wealthy sheikhs who collect, raise or hunt with birds, can afford to bankroll people like Lendrum and want wild birds because they believe they're preferable to ones that are bred in captivity.

Why did Lendrum choose the UK as the destination for his most recent smuggling trip?
He claims he's not allowed into the United Arab Emirates. He’s vague about what happened, but says he's been barred from at least entering Dubai. It could be that the sheikhs who were financing him wanted to disassociate themselves from him after his big arrest of 2010, so he was looking for other clients. He's been in the UK for many years, knows a lot of people there and there's a market for the eggs there too.

How many times has he been caught?
He first went on trial in Zimbabwe in 1983 for stealing eggs from a national park with his father. He says he stole them for a collection, but there were rumours that he did it so he could smuggle them for profit. He was arrested again in 2002 in Northern Quebec for stealing gerfalcon eggs. He pled guilty and got a fine. In 2010, he was captured at Birmingham Airport and given a two-and-a-half-year prison sentence. In 2016, he was arrested in Sao Paolo with three or four rare white chested peregrine falcon eggs, which are only found in remote corners of Patagonia. He was convicted, got a four-and-a-half-year sentence, was bailed out pending appeal and fled the country. He's compiled quite a record.

Why do you think he keeps going back to egg smuggling, even though he keeps getting caught? Do you reckon it's become a bit of an obsession?
Sure, it's an obsession. If you follow the history of egg collecting it's been going on in the UK for 150 years, if not longer, and the collectors are often quite obsessive. Part of the reason Lendrum keeps going back to stealing eggs is that he shares the obsessiveness of these collectors.

So he's interested in the eggs themselves and not just the process of stealing them and the profits to be made from them?
Yeah. I think as a boy he amassed a collection with his father, but it looked like even back in those days it might have been a cover for a smuggling operation. He loves the outdoors and really does love birds, though. He’s quite a knowledgeable ornithologist. Profit might also keep him going back to egg theft because he’s not the kind of guy who has ever worked a nine to five. He's a rebel and likes breaking the rules.

Do you think he’ll continue with his egg-stealing career when he's released from prison?
On one hand, he's barred from any place where there are birds of prey, and is on a watch list, which means he's going to have a hard time doing the same thing as before. On the other, with the type of record he's got, what employer is going to give him a job?

Thanks, Jeffrey.

@nickchesterv