Eel smuggler with dementia can’t remember where he hid profits of £53million scheme – World News

A pensioner who smuggled more than £53 million worth of rare baby eels to Asia has forgotten where his profits are hidden because he has dementia, a court heard.

Gilbert Khoo, 67, imported the live elvers from Spain to a barn in the West Country before hiding them under hauls of chilled fish and sending them off to Heathrow.

Khoo, seen posing with gold bars in photographs, then made a fortune shipping the critically endangered European glass eels to Malaysia and Hong Kong, where they are a culinary delicacy.

He sparked an NCA probe when Border Force officials opened a package containing 600,000 elvers on 15 February 2017.

Half had already died and the Fish Inspectorate sent 290,000 of them home to Spain where they were released back into the wild.

He narrowly dodged jail after claiming he was at risk of catching Covid-19 in custody after conviction of animal export offences in March last year.

Khoo has now been diagnosed with dementia and is claiming he cannot remember where he hid the spoils, a financial confiscation hearing was told on Friday.

Jolyon Robertson, prosecuting, said: “There are assets in Mr Khoo’s bank account which the Crown say have been hidden which go back six years.”

Tom Godfrey, defending, said: “Mr Khoo now with diagnosed with dementia and is finding it extremely difficult to provide necessary instructions to us as to where those payments went.

“If it is the case that we can’t receive instructions from Mr Khoo, then there may be situation where we put forward that we may not be able to at all.”

“I’m afraid there is still quite a gulf between the parties, we have sought resolution but not been fruitful so far.”

The hearing at Southwark crown court said that Khoo owned a car but lived in a rental property and “assets wise he doesn’t have much at all” now.

Judge Jeffrey Pegden QC said a figure needed to be agreed between both legal sides on exactly how much money had been concealed by Khoo in other assets.

The judge fixed a date for a follow-up hearing on 2 July, adding: “I’m still not quite clear, there must be some figure that’s agreed.”

‘”The money must be somewhere,” commented Judge Pegden after the hearing ended.

At the sentencing in March last year, prosecutor Peter Glenser QC told the court the operation had been running for three years from an illegal elver station in a Gloucestershire barn and had made Khoo a fortune.

The European eels, also known as Anguilla Anguilla, smuggled by Khoo are a species on the brink of extinction, expert Andrew Kerr from the Sustainable Eel Group told the court earlier.

The court heard the total value of the exports was a whopping £53,365,000.

Khoo, of Parbury Rise, Chessington, denied but was convicted of three counts of failure to notify movement of animals between member states and three counts of evasion of a prohibition or restriction on the export of goods.

He was sentenced to two years imprisonment suspended for two years and ordered to carry out 240 hours of unpaid work.

A following confiscation hearing was set for 2 July.