Yes we know they do it with, for example, Atelopus zeteki and several other species, and some hobbyists in NZ have been given permits to keep these gecko's and breed them, but i don't know how much of them or doing it for the conservation part of it...
We also don't see it working that way because most of the NZ gecko's are not in NZ but in Europe, Asia and Canada.

Idealy they would all be shipped back but we both know that's as romantic as the story above, but also not going to happen.
what they should do is what you said, give out permits to scientists and zoo's, but than overseas, so all those smuggled animals can help with the preservation of the species, instead of being locked away in some guys basement to never see any form of natural sunlight again.

Please don't get us wrong because it's hard to explain in English for us, we do not encourage the smuggling in any way, they should be left alone and at most closely monitered by some scientists, but we do believe that in some way legalising and starting a closely monitored studbook for the ones that are already here and have produced CB offspring could be a big help in the conservation of them.