Socratic Monologue

Well, that claim is false. There are specimens on the market that didn't come from Indonesia. There is the Italian import mentioned earlier in this thread, and those specimens are demonstrably illegal in the US. There are possibly specimens that were USCBB from previously smuggled animals (I talked to a seller on another site very recently who was ignorant enough to claim his were exactly this), and those are illegal in the US.

Simply because some specimens were imported with CITES documents doesn't mean all of those on the market were. And that is a big part of my point about bluffing -- a seller may claim they are selling permitted animals (because such permitted animals do or at least could exist) but if they don't provide evidence that the very animals they are selling are the permitted ones, such claims aren't credible given all the other considerations around this species. The market price is still high enough that trafficked specimens will continue for some time, and it is high enough to encourage all sorts of deception.

But on the CITES-permitted laundered exports from Indonesia, that seems to be true. There's a section in 'Poached' (good book, BTW) about it, reprinted here on Wired. None of these permitted animals are yet listed in the CITES database, though, so without seeing actual permits and a paper trail back to those permits from the actual animal for sale (bills of sale or other financial documentation leading back to the names on the permit), this is all just theoretical.