The Orchid Thief follows the legal battles of John Laroche, an orchid breeder who is arrested for stealing rare ghost orchids from the Fakahatchee Strand State Preserve in Florida. Susan Orlean, a writer for The New Yorker, travels to Florida to write a story about his arrest and, in the process, learns more about Laroche and the world of competitive plant breeding. The swamp where the ghost orchid grows is protected tribal territory, making it illegal to remove or tamper with the local flora; however, Laroche believes that he did not technically break the law. Laroche thinks he found a legal loophole that allows Seminole tribe members to remove plants and animals from the protected area. Laroche then hires three Seminole men to go with him and physically pick the orchids, believing that it is technically legal to take the orchids from the preserve so long as a Seminole does the taking. The men were immediately arrested as they left the swamp, but Laroche remained convinced that they had not broken the law. Laroche claims that his intention was not only to take the potentially valuable flowers but also to highlight the problems with the current law so that lawmakers could eventually act to close the loophole. Unfortunately for Laroche, the judge in the case does not agree with his interpretation of the law in question, and Laroche eventually decides to take a plea for six months probation.
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