BRUSSELS: Feathers are flying after Chinese authorities seized hundreds of Belgian pigeons, including Bolt, the world’s most expensive racer, sold for 310,000 euros ($419,800) earlier this year.
Bolt was released last Thursday, together with 400 of his feathered friends, but a further 1,200 racing pigeons are still captive because of a dispute over import duties.
The Belgian ambassador to Beijing is in talks to try to free the rest, the Belgian foreign ministry said on Sunday.
Chinese authorities have said the birds were declared at only nominal values, meaning China would be losing out massively on tax and import duties.
Import duties are 10 percent of the value and, on top of that, a tax of 13 percent is levied, meaning China was due around 75,000 euros for Bolt alone.
Bolt the pigeon, named after the Olympic gold-winning Jamaican sprinter Usain Bolt, is worth so much in part because he was bred by the celebrated Belgian pigeon fancier Leo Heremans. In 2012, Bolt was the swiftest pigeon in Belgium, where racing rules are especially strict.
He was auctioned in May by the Belgian pigeon traders PIPA, short for Pigeon Paradise, and his release was secured after PIPA’s chief executive Nikolaas Gyselbrecht flew to Beijing to negotiate.
The Chinese authorities agreed PIPA was free of any blame and therefore released the 401 birds to their buyers after “a symbolic sum” was paid, Gyselbrecht told Reuters. Under Chinese law, he said the authorities could have exacted a huge payment equal to the birds’ total value of more than a million euros.
Beijing authorities could not immediately be reached for comment.
Gyselbrecht said the Belgian and Beijing authorities are trying to find one party to represent the many buyers of all the other birds to simplify negotiations.
So far the pigeons have spent two months in captivity, rather than the standard one month in quarantine.
Bolt is well and living in Beijing with his new owner, but he was fortunate.
“Of the 401 pigeons, four died. Luckily they were not the most expensive. The most expensive that died was worth 2,000 euros,” Gyselbrecht said.
Bolt’s racing days are done. As a homing pigeon, if he were allowed to fly, he would try to head back to Belgium, so he will only be used for breeding in China, where pigeon racing has surged in popularity.
“He will have a good retirement. He will have a very nice pigeon loft and he will see a lot of female pigeons,” Gyselbrecht said.
Ruffled feathers as China seizes pigeons
Ruffled feathers as China seizes pigeons
Second doctor in Matthew Perry overdose case sentenced to home confinement
- Dr. Mark Chavez, 55, a onetime San Diego-based physician, pleaded guilty in federal court in October
- Judge Sherilyn Peace Garnett also sentenced Chavez to 300 hours of community service
LOS ANGELES: A second California doctor was sentenced on Tuesday to eight months of home confinement for illegally supplying “Friends” star Matthew Perry with ketamine, the powerful sedative that caused the actor’s fatal drug overdose in a hot tub in 2023.
Dr. Mark Chavez, 55, a onetime San Diego-based physician, pleaded guilty in federal court in October to a single felony count of conspiracy to distribute the prescription anesthetic and surrendered his medical license in November.
Judge Sherilyn Peace Garnett also sentenced Chavez to 300 hours of community service. As part of his plea agreement, Chavez admitted to selling ketamine to another physician Dr. Salvador Plasencia, 44, who in turn supplied the drug to Perry, though not the dose that ultimately killed the performer. Plasencia, who pleaded guilty to four counts of unlawful drug distribution, was sentenced earlier this month to 2 1/2 years behind bars.
He and Chavez were the first two of five people convicted in connection with Perry’s ketamine-induced death to be sent off to prison.
The three others scheduled to be sentenced in the coming weeks — Jasveen Sangha, 42, a drug dealer known as the “Ketamine Queen;” a go-between dealer Erik Fleming, 56; and Perry’s former personal assistant, Iwamasa, 60.
Sangha admitted to supplying the ketamine dose that killed Perry, and Iwamasa acknowledged injecting Perry with it. It was Iwamasa who later found Perry, aged 54, face down and lifeless, in the jacuzzi of his Los Angeles home on October 28, 2023.
An autopsy report concluded the actor died from the acute effects of ketamine,” which combined with other factors in causing him to lose consciousness and drown.
Perry had publicly acknowledged decades of substance abuse, including the years he starred as Chandler Bing on the hit 1990s NBC television series “Friends.”
According to federal law enforcement officials, Perry had been receiving ketamine infusions for treatment of depression and anxiety at a clinic where he became addicted to the drug.
When doctors there refused to increase his dosage, he turned to unscrupulous providers elsewhere willing to exploit Perry’s drug dependency as a way to make quick money, authorities said. Ketamine is a short-acting anesthetic with hallucinogenic properties that is sometimes prescribed to treat depression and other psychiatric disorders. It also has seen widespread abuse as an illicit party drug.
