text: Painted parrot scam lands Australian in jail . PERTH , Australia 1996-08-27 A conman who painted common Australian parrots with dye to make them look like rare birds worth thousands of dollars was jailed for fraud on Tuesday . Denham Peiris painted six green parrots , worth about A$ 100 ( US$ 79 ) a pair , with a cinnamon hair dye and traded them as Indian Ringneck Parrots , valued at A$ 14,000 a pair . Peiris , 32 , of Perth , was sentenced in the Western Australian District Court to two years in jail for fraud after trading three pairs of impostor birds for 21 parrots worth a total of A$ 28,000 . " Everyone was fooled , " said pet shop owner Shane Drew , who unknowingly traded the disguised birds . " I 'd already had three local breeders have a look at them and sent photos and videos of the birds to the eastern states for authentication -- they said they 're nice birds , " Drew told reporters outside court . " After I was told they were dyed , I checked them over again . It was a perfect paint job except for one feather under a wing of one bird that was only half dyed , " Drew said . Drew said Peiris , a bird enthusiast , would have succeeded with the fraud if he had not tried to trade a fourth pair of bogus birds after an associate had told police of the scam . If not for the informant , the painted parrots ' true colours would not have been known for six months , he said . " They moult in the summer , so five or six months down the track , I would have looked like the guilty party , " Drew said .