Prison time for turtle smuggling
A Chinese man faces up to five years in prison for trying to smuggle protected turtles worth more than US$1mil from the United States to Hong Kong.
Wei Qiang Lin, of Brooklyn, pleaded guilty on Monday in a federal district court in New York to exporting more than 220 parcels containing around 850 eastern box turtles and three-toed box turtles.
The Justice Department said the live turtles had been wrapped in socks for the weeks-long journey and the boxes with the reptiles had been labelled as containing 'plastic animal toys.'
The turtles, which had a market value of US$1.4mil (RM5.9mil), were intercepted by law enforcement at a border inspection, it said. — AFP
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