shipping a beast like that from South America would be a nightmare! 10k would be a bargain... the box/crate would cost well over 1k and you would be looking at at least 200 gallons of water @ $6 a kilo plus all the other mumbo jumbo
I am with Vince
vincentwugwg . I think to make sure the shipping is successful and not a fancy DOA show $20K or more would be needed.
Wes told me that by weight, the airfare costs ~$6 a pound, not a kilo but it could be my memory. So 1 gal = 8 lbs = 8x6 = $48 to ship one gallon of water, times 200 gal = $10K already.
Yet this is about fishes in plastic sacks in cardboard boxes, lift-able by man. This has become a convention and is a well-oiled process. But everything about transporting this fish will be custom or improvisation. That means multiply the conventional expense by 10x or a 100x if you will. Perhaps not the airfare but every other step of physical transport.
The crated shipping container will have to be equipped with a working bio filter and perhaps a small oxygen tank + pump, even if the fish is sedated. All running on a battery pack. Perhaps a heater too would need to be incorporated.
A lot of corners can be cut here but you can cut the total to 10K just to get a taxidermy of a large RTC in the end.