Importing BPs from Africa

I'm just curious on the whole process of importing BPs from Africa to the U.S. How does it happen?
What type of agents are involved?
What kind of import fees/taxes are there?
How do they typically ship?
What countries do they typically come from?

Don't know who the agents are - only a few people who import in the thousands have those contacts. I also don't know the fees or required ppwk.

They ship over in crates of thousands of animals.

They don't generally ship individual animals for someone wanting to pick up a few or even a hundred - unless it's a new morph that someone has paid upwards of $10K for.

Generally from Ghana.

I don't know too much on the subject but from what I've heard people that import from africa either
A. Buy thousands of imported BP's
B. Have "in country" connections to get ahold of new morphs when they pop up in the bush. I think these people are rare and go to great lengths to keep the amount of people with connections rare.

I have been looking into this for some time now not very long but I have been looking and as soon as I find out I'll let everyone know I work with alot of Ghanaian men and the man trying to help me is from the city in ghana he says in the city they know nothing of snake farms and a few from the village they say that the village knows more about the snakes but they never heard of exporting them they have friends over there trying to find more info on it for me as soon as they get me a connection I'll go and get a permit until then I'm on standby also they say it's hard to trust anyone over there because there is so many scams going on that's why he said that he would help me screen the scams and all

I'll predict you're going to get scammed.

When they ship the snakes over to here, it's usually bags of 10, in lots numbers up into the thousands. You don't get a bag of ten shipped from Ghana, they export really large lots of right out of the egg hatchlings. They've usually never fed, and anything that's unusual(morphs, etc) is held back for more money from the established buyers.

So you would see dinkers and normals, perhaps the odd yellowbelly type thing maybe. The things like albinos, leutictics, deserts and such, those are not in the regular import bins. The folks over there are well versed in morphs and know what they're worth and who will give them top dollar.

They do ship some gravid balls, I think they aren't supposed to, but I see them advertised. As far as the fees and permits, you're probably looking at a LOT of cash, plus you'd have to consider the pay-offs to the various folks producing the snakes since they already have folks to sell to, they normally figure you should pay them for the contact info too.

If I wanted some imported babies for some reason, I'd just go to one of the guys who does import them already and order up however many bags of hatchlings when they get a shipment. I know that BallRoom Pythons South usually gets some imports in. Not certain who else. It'd be way too much time, effort and money for me to establish a connection to get all the permits and such just to do something other people are already doing.

Outback Reptiles imports

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Originally Posted by ClarkT

I'm just curious on the whole process of importing BPs from Africa to the U.S. How does it happen?
What type of agents are involved?
What kind of import fees/taxes are there?
How do they typically ship?
What countries do they typically come from?

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I do bring over BP's from Africa every year for the past 4 years this will be my 5th year doing it.

As for agents you need a contact in Africa willing to do it. You also need CITES paperwork as well. If your working with a real agent they will be able to provide proof that they can in fact export and have the licenses to do so from Ghana.

Fees are CITES, custom's and freight. Plus whatever fees your agent charges you as well.

They are shipped via Delta Air freight to an airport.

Normally they are shipped from Ghana.

Just to give you an idea I brought over 1500 hatchling and 30 adult bp's and the fees were $3100 when it was said and done. That's just the fees mind you not the cost of the snakes or any other expenses. Before anyone asks the adults were all morphs and about 250 of the hatchlings were morphs as well.

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Originally Posted by wolfy-hound

I'll predict you're going to get scammed.

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That was my first thought...especially after this..."because there is so many scams going on that's why he said that he would help me screen the scams and all"

Only easily visible morphs are pulled from the export piles in Ghana. Things that are subtle aren't. They have far too many snakes to pack up to examine all of them. We were lucky enough to get about 10% morphs out of our last "normal" shipment in June of 2011. Your not going to get an albino, or something crazy without paying more for it.

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Originally Posted by meeistom

Only easily visible morphs are pulled from the export piles in Ghana. Things that are subtle aren't. They have far too many snakes to pack up to examine all of them. We were lucky enough to get about 10% morphs out of our last "normal" shipment in June of 2011. Your not going to get an albino, or something crazy without paying more for it.

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10%? Wow...that's a lot higher than I would have guessed...