The finale of “Monsters of God,” a five-part docuseries from “Tiger King” creator Eric Goode exploring the exotic reptile smuggling trade, is an eye-opener.
After exploring all avenues of the shady underworld of reptile smuggling, from reptile dealers and collectors to the zoos and the feds, the fifth part of the enthralling show — airing the night of Sept. 3 on HBO — sees Goode track down Anson Wong, a man known as the “Pablo Escobar of animal trafficking” who runs a vast network of wildlife smuggling operations out of Malaysia, capitalizing on the country’s lax wildlife protection laws and officials open to bribery. Goode sits down for an interview with Wong at his fortress in the mountains of Penang, and the two engage in a chummy discussion about his illegal empire.
“I was definitely fearful the day before meeting him and wondering how this was going to play out,” Goode told Variety, adding, “Sometimes I wonder if I’m just being stupid. It’s not that I’m brave by any stretch, but you just feel it out. I don’t know if it’s the most nervous I’ve been, but it’s certainly up there.”
But that isn’t the biggest surprise.
During its final scenes, “Monsters of God” reveals that Ken McCloud, a special agent for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service who worked tirelessly to apprehend Wong, has been keeping a ploughshare tortoise — the most endangered tortoise in the world, with only around 100 remaining in the wild — in his home.
“Monsters of God” shows Goode entering McCloud and his wife Rose’s home with a hidden camera and capturing the ploughshare tortoise in a grubby terrarium in their living room. Goode had photographed McCloud and his wife years ago for a magazine, and says he got “upset” when the photo was published.
“I didn’t know he was trying to keep it a secret,” Goode says. “He was very paranoid about theft, and didn’t even want to put the tortoise outside in his backyard because he was so worried that someone might steal it, since it’s so valuable. He got increasingly paranoid and that tortoise became more and more important to him, almost like his only child.”
A ploughshare tortoise in “Monsters of God.”
HBO
Goode opted to use a hidden camera for the show because McCloud had grown so protective over the ploughshare tortoise that the last time he visited his home, the former special agent came out waving a gun.
“It’s sad,” Goode says. “I asked him, ‘What separates the prisoner from the prison guard?’ and about the ethics of keeping that animal in solitary confinement by itself, and tried to convince him that that wasn’t the best place for that tortoise.”
And then there’s the legal element. “I would think that the government would want to do something about it. If you were an ex-DEA agent who had a garage full of cocaine after you retired, you might think, ‘Hey, we’ve gotta do something about this ex-DEA agent!!’” adds Goode. “I’m still talking to people in the government about what to do about that.”
Ken McCloud in “Monsters of God”
HBO
This is a personal issue for Goode, who is one of the world’s leading turtle conservationist. His nonprofit, the Turtle Conservancy, has helped protect 65 turtle species and preserved over 70,000 acres of wildlife across the world, and he is the U.S. Studbook Keeper for all American zoos on ploughshare tortoises, meaning it’s his job to keep track of all the ploughshare tortoises that aren’t in their native Madagascar. It’s his hope that the tortoise McCloud has stolen away will be placed in a breeding colony so that it can help grow the species. It’s also a lesson that even those on the side of the law can have unclean hands.
“[McCloud’s] story is he used to work for a reptile dealer in L.A., so he just so happened to end up on the other side of the fence in law enforcement, but he could have ended up on a different side of the fence,” Goode says. “He has the fever, or the addiction, if you want to use a drug analogy, so he knew that he wanted those animals. And even though he was taking them from people that brought them in, he loved that he got to be the guy who kept them. It’s like the DEA agent who becomes an addict. There’s some weird psychological stuff going on there.”