A gamekeeper’s son who illegally sold wild peregrine falcon chicks for racing in the Middle East has been ordered to pay back £27,000 of criminal profits.
Stunned prosecutors said Lewis Hall, 24, threatened to wipe out the south of Scotland’s peregrine population by shipping the birds abroad selling the birds to wealthy sheikhs made £110,000 from his crimes.
Lewis Hall, 24, made £110,000 from the ‘extremely lucrative’ international trade in peregrine falcons by taking them from the wild and selling them to be raced in Arabia.
Scottish birds are highly prized in the sport, and DNA testing showed that birds supplied by Hall and his father Timothy were being raced in Dubai.
Prosecutors had originally been seeking to recover £164,000 that they said Hall junior had made from the sale of wild birds.
He accepted he had benefited from ‘general criminal conduct’ to the tune of £110,000 but only agreed to repay £27,182 under Proceeds of Crime legislation following a hearing at Selkirk Sheriff Court.
The figure he agreed to pay was based on an amount that the court deemed as being available.
The Crown has the power to apply to the court to extend the order to seize money and any assets Hall acquires in the future to pay back the full amount he made from his crimes.
Hall had previously been sentenced to 150 hours’ unpaid work and banned from possessing birds of prey for five years after admitting acquiring for commercial purposes, keeping for sale, and selling chicks between 2020 and 2021.
His father, a part-time gamekeeper, also admitted several offences and was sentenced to 220 hours of unpaid work.
Police Scotland said if the father and son had not been caught they ‘had the potential to wipe out the entire population of peregrine falcons in the south of Scotland’.
The case was one of the first pursued under a wildlife criminal investigation called Operation Tantallon, which has exposed the illegal trade in wild-caught birds.
Peregrine falcons can reach diving speeds of 200mph, making them the fastest animal on the planet, and they are in high demand in elite Arab circles.
Captive breeding programmes are legal but the Halls were involved in supplying wild birds.
A police and Scottish SPCA raid on their home in Lamberton, Berwickshire, in May 2021 found seven falcon chicks, fraudulent breeding certificates and drones for monitoring the birds’ nests.
Forensic testing showed four of the chicks came from a nest in a disused quarry in southern Scotland which had been plundered.
They were not related to nine captive adult falcons also found in the house.
Paperwork seized from the men’s home included a receipt from a bank account based in Dubai.
Hall junior had sold birds to ‘legitimate buyers’ after fraudulently obtaining official certificates that showed they had been bred in captivity.
The investigation showed that he had registered several chicks with the Animal Health and Plant Agency using parent birds that were either dead or belonged to a third party.
In 2020, he also registered three clutches of eggs consisting of 14 chicks which he claimed had been laid by the same female falcon and hatched 22 days apart, despite it being a ‘biological impossibility’.
Sineidin Corrins, Deputy Procurator Fiscal for specialist casework at the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service (COPFS), said yesterday [THURS]: ‘The sale of peregrine falcons has become an extremely lucrative business.
‘Lewis Hall took advantage of that for his own financial gain and to the detriment of the wild peregrine falcon population in the South of Scotland.
‘However, even after a conviction was secured in this matter, the Crown commenced Proceeds of Crime action to ensure the funds Hall obtained illegally were pursued.
‘Prosecution of those involved in financial crime does not stop at criminal conviction and sentencing. The funds recovered from Lewis Hall will be added to those already gathered from Proceeds of Crime, to be re-invested in the community by Scottish Ministers through the CashBack for Communities programme.’
Hall senior pleaded guilty to acquiring for commercial purposes, keeping for sale and selling 15 wild peregrine falcon chicks and to being in possession of a further seven.
He also admitted to charges relating to firearms and animal welfare offences and was banned from possessing birds of prey for five years.