‘Monsters of God’ Finale Twist: The Final Boss and Rogue Special Agent
The finale of HBO's five-part docuseries "Monsters of God," from "Tiger King" creator Eric Goode, delivers two major twists: an interview with Anson Wong, dubbed the "Pablo Escobar of animal trafficking," and the revelation that a US Fish and Wildlife special agent who pursued him had secretly kept a critically endangered tortoise at home. The findings raise questions about corruption and hypocrisy at both ends of the illegal wildlife trade, a subject Goode says is personal given his own conservation work.
Goode met Wong, who ran a wildlife smuggling network exploiting lax laws and bribery in Malaysia, at his Penang compound, describing himself as fearful beforehand. The series also shows Goode using a hidden camera to film former agent Ken McCloud keeping a ploughshare tortoise, of which only around 100 remain in the wild, in a terrarium at his home; McCloud reportedly once confronted Goode with a gun over the animal. Goode, founder of the Turtle Conservancy and US studbook keeper for ploughshare tortoises, says he is pressing authorities to act and hopes the tortoise will eventually join a breeding programme.
- HBO's "Monsters of God" finale interviews trafficker Anson Wong
- Ex-federal agent secretly kept endangered ploughshare tortoise at home
- Filmmaker Eric Goode is now pushing officials to intervene
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Anson Wong is a Malaysian wildlife trafficker, once known as the "Lizard King", who has previously served prison time for smuggling endangered species. He built a smuggling operation that took advantage of weak enforcement and bribery in Malaysia, and is now the subject of a new HBO documentary series called Monsters of God, made by Eric Goode, the filmmaker behind Tiger King. Goode is also a conservationist who runs the Turtle Conservancy and oversees breeding records for the ploughshare tortoise, one of the rarest tortoises in the world, with only around 100 left in the wild.
The series looks at both sides of the illegal wildlife trade: the traffickers who supply rare animals, and the officials meant to stop them. It follows Goode's efforts to document Wong's network, as well as a separate storyline involving a former US Fish and Wildlife special agent who had worked on trafficking cases.
This matters because it raises broader questions about how effectively illegal wildlife trafficking is policed, and about the conduct of people on both sides of that fight, from smugglers to the law enforcement officers pursuing them.