It is Florida.
Anybody with a snorkel can grab this kind of stuff.
He probably harvested them himself.
I'm a little confused by the article. It looks like the only guy that got busted was the one buying the illegal animals and not the company that harvested and sold them. What's up with that?
This is just but one small chapter in a much larger story. Hale was caught as part of large scale investigation that not had the supplier convicted, but also part of the investigation that caught Perrin and his manager.
an entire section of reef in the wild is missing when viewed from above.
Here's a bit more of the background...
http://www.keysnet.com/2014/04/05/495927/prosecutions-for-illegal-marine.html?sp=/99/106/