I live in Israel, and the situation here (regarding the availability of E. conicus) is much worse than in the US: no breeder that I know of breeds these animals here, and they are very rarely imported.
I've talked to one of the major reptile importers here in Israel, and his excuse for not dealing with this species was this: he cliamed that no one in the US has CITES exportation permits E.conicus. Can this be true?
Ran