Metro

‘Poison’ ivory duo

GUILTY PLEAS: Dealers Mukesh Gupta (above) and Johnson Jung-Chien Lu.

GUILTY PLEAS: Dealers Mukesh Gupta (above) and Johnson Jung-Chien Lu. (Steven Hirsch)

Johnson Jung-Chien Lu.

Johnson Jung-Chien Lu. (Steven Hirsch)

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This was one jumbo bust.

Officials confiscated $2 million in elephant ivory from two Diamond District jewelers in what’s being touted as one of the biggest seizures of illegal ivory in New York state history.

Mukesh Gupta, 67, and Johnson Jung-Chien Lu, 56, lived lives of luxury in leafy Westchester suburbs, but they were paid for with the lives of poached, endangered elephants, officials said after the two men pleaded guilty in Manhattan Supreme Court to felony wildlife crimes.

Gupta, owner of Raja Jewels at 7 W. 45th St., and Lu, owner of New York Jewelry Mart at 26 W. 46th St., will not serve a minute in jail. But they have forfeited their ivory and must pay an additional total of $55,000 to the Wildlife Conservation Society.

“Poachers should not have a market in Manhattan,” said Manhattan DA Cyrus Vance Jr., noting the tragedy of the magnificent animals being slaughtered for the trade in mass-produced, “unremarkable decorative items” carved from their tusks.

Seized items, including carved tusks, sculpture, jewelry and other baubles, were displayed by prosecutors and officials with the state Department of Environmental Conservation and the US Fish and Wildlife Service.

The two men were guilty only of selling and offering to sell ivory without the necessary permit, their lawyers emphasized. Dealers must display a permit establishing that the ivory was harvested prior to the animals receiving government-protection status in the ’70s.

Vance said illegal ivory dealers are fair game in the war against poaching.

“If we only look at this issue as, ‘Hey, I didn’t have a permit,’ and you ignore the consequences, then you are fueling the trade of wildlife crime,” he said. “You are encouraging and fostering the extinction of species.”

Wildlife advocates say more than 24 tons of ivory were seized in 2011, making it the worst year for elephant-poaching deaths since the 1989 ivory ban.