[6] In 2002, he was fined by the IBAMA (Brazilian Ministry of the Environment's Enforcement Agency) for illegal transportation of monkeys and orchids from the unexplored Amazonian region of Serra do Aracá.
In April 2003, Van Roosmalen was fired from his senior scientist job with the federal institute INPA for alleged 'illegal' export abroad of environmental genetic samples.
At one point Van Roosmalen shared a cell with two violent crack addicts whose drug debts he had to pay to stay alive.
[8][9] Van Roosmalen told a Wired news reporter that he has a video of two ex-policemen knocking on his door immediately after tucking revolvers into their pants.
Believing that he would be killed if he stayed, he and his partner Vivian Garcia went on the run to the Caribbean Island of Margarita with no plans to return to their home in Manaus as of August 2007.
[6] In exile, on contract with a Dutch publishing house, Van Roosmalen began to write popular-scientific books about his life in the Amazon.