A MEMBER of the traveling community linked to a group of thieves known as the Rathkeale Rivers has admitted he “was doing wrong” by trafficking endangered black rhino horns to a collector in New York for €35,000.
23-year-old Michael Slattery now faces over two years in a US jail after he told a Manhattan judge that he barely knows how to read and write but understood the charges before the court.
The US State attorney prosecuted Slattery after he was linked to the County Limerick based gang of thieves identified by Europol as being responsible for hundreds of thefts around Europe from zoos, museums, galleries and auction houses.
The gang is also responsible for the theft of eight horns from the National Museum earlier this year.
Slattery told the judge of his torrid time this far in prison where he was threatened with violence and sexual provocation or fear of attack.
He will be sentenced next year and will be deported after serving an expected 30 months in prison.
