Ontarian’s smuggling conviction highlights lucrative turtle trade

An Ontario man’s guilty plea this week for smuggling 51 turtles in his sweatpants might seem surprising — even more so when you learn 27-year-old Kai Xu kept up the illegal activity after being arrested for illegally transporting wildlife across the Canada-U.S. border.

But the reptiles represent big business in China, where they are worth double or triple what Xu paid for them online. In a court filing, assistant U.S. attorney Sara Woodward said that he regularly “deals in turtle shipments worth $30,000, $80,000 or $125,000.”

The global illegal trade of wildlife is lucrative business, Gerry Brunet, manager of operations for Wildlife Enforcement Directorate with Environment Canada, tells Yahoo Canada News.

“Studies have shown that it’s earning up to $30 billion US per year.”

And in China and in other parts of Asia, turtles and tortoises are big business — so much so that the groups smuggling them in and out of the continent often have ties to organized crime, says Chris Shepherd, regional director for southeast Asia for TRAFFIC, a division of the World Wildlife Foundation that studies trafficked species.

“In this part of the world it’s not unusual at all,” Shepherd tells Yahoo Canada News about reptile smuggling. “Tortoises and freshwater turtles are one of the most commonly smuggled species groups in Asia.”

Some of those species originate in Asia and stay there, or are smuggled from Asia to other parts of the world. But Shepherd says the reptiles are increasingly coming out of North America, particularly as Asian species become depleted.

For example, in many fresh water bodies in Malaysia the most common turtle is the non-native North American red-eared slider, Shepherd says. It’s commonly available in pet stores in the country, and the animals sometimes get loose or are released intentionally by people who no longer want to care for them.

In North America, there have been other recent cases involving turtle and tortoise smuggling. An Illinois man was sentenced to three years in prison earlier this year for purchasing a threatened species — his second conviction related to turtle smuggling. Another man from China was convicted in February of smuggling turtle parts from that country into the United States. Also this year, a turtle expert in Drumheller, Alta., helped authorities identify turtle parts smuggled into the country from Hong Kong. And two Japanese men were set to be arraigned Thursday in a Los Angeles court, on charges of attempting to smuggle more than 50 live turtles and tortoises into the country.

“I would definitely say that in the past 10 years we’ve seen an increase in the poaching and trafficking of turtles for the pet trade and use of food,” Brunet says.

Why turtles?

Many people may not know that the smuggling of reptiles like turtles and tortoises is this common and this lucrative. The animals aren’t as well-known as larger ones like rhinos and elephants for being threatened species, Shepherd says, which leads to some of the lack of awareness.

“It’s a mess,” he says. “The harvesting of turtles and tortoises globally is on a scale most people wouldn’t even believe.”

In parts of Asia, turtles are considered a symbol of health and longevity, and that helps fuel the demand for the animals. But they’re also a status symbol, Shepherd says, in part because of their endangered status.

“Turtles are consumed as meat, especially in east Asia,” he says, and that does fuel some of the illegal trade of the reptiles. But they also are kept as pets — sometimes by well-meaning people who don’t realize they’re caring for animals obtained illegally but also by those who intentionally seek out rare species as a status symbol.

“As they’re becoming increasingly rare, whether it’s due to over-harvesting for the meat trade or whatever reasons, the demand is going up,” Shepherd says.

And with that increase in demand comes an increase in price, which is why Xu and others like him reportedly received such large sums. Uncommon species can garner higher prices, but so can any species from a part of the world with better anti-smuggling enforcement for wildlife, he says.

“North America generally has far better enforcement success rates and awareness of enforcement than other parts of the world,” Shepherd says.

And that, along with the decreasing availability of species native to Asia, leads to an increase in demand for reptiles from Canada and the United States.

Organized crime at work

As suggested by the dollar value of just a single shipment to which Xu pled guilty, reptile smuggling is not often a one-person operation.

“I think the average person wouldn’t make the link between turtles and organized crime, but it is there,” Shepherd says.

A larger organization appears to be at work in Xu’s case, the United States argued in court. Xu would order the turtles online, go to Michigan to pick them up, and then either ship them to China or smuggle them back to Canada by taping them to his legs to hide them, The Associated Press reports.

Having been in custody since his September 2014 arrest in suburban Detroit, Xu pleaded guilty in federal court in Ann Arbor to six crimes related to the smuggling or attempted smuggling of more than 1,000 reptiles out of the United States. He faces up to a decade in prison.

“The volume and the way he was smuggling suggest it was for the pet trade,” Shepherd says. Smuggling for the meat trade is often done by the ton, he says.

But while Xu smuggled a significant number of animals himself, evidence suggests he didn’t act alone and that turtle smuggling is an increasingly common practice.

“All of the evidence points to Mr. Xu directing others and doing it for a very considerable time and for an extreme amount of profit,” the Detroit News reports Woodward saying in court. She said that Xu is part of an elaborate network of people involved in the harvesting and shipment of turtles and terrapins, with ties to organized crime.

Another Canadian was arrested attempting to smuggle more than 1,000 turtles in his luggage while flying from Detroit to Shanghai.

The turtles seized in Xu’s case were North American species, including eastern box turtles, red-eared sliders and diamondback terrapins.

Species smuggled out of Canada include Blanding’s turtle, wood turtles, northern map turtles, spiny softshell turtles and the spotted turtle, an endangered species, Brunet says.

Some species can sell for up to $800 per animal. And rare tortoises can garner many times more than that. The four critically endangered tortoise species on Madagascar command tens of thousands of dollars on the black market, Shepherd says.

“That trade is completely being run by organized crime networks,” Shepherd says. “If you looked at the profits made from turtles and tortoises, there’s huge profits to be made with relatively low risk — in many cases, almost no risk.”

Awareness is key

As the illegal trade in reptiles like turtles and tortoises continues to grow, the ecological consequences are serious. Many species around the world are already depleted, including in North America.

And the release of non-native species into the wild, either intentionally or accidentally, can have serious consequences, Shepherd says. There are areas of North America that already have problems with invasive reptile species, he said. For example, pythons in the Florida everglades. The same thing could happen with North American species in other parts of the world.

More public education is the key to reducing the illegal trade of turtles and tortoises, Shepherd says.

“We need to be doing a much better job on educating the public on the dos and don'ts of keeping turtles and tortoises as pets,” he says.

It’s buyer beware, Brunet agrees. People selling turtles in Canada should be able to prove to you that they’re doing it above board.

“The best thing the public can do when they’re buying turtles and tortoises in pet stores is ask questions,” he says. “Ask them how the animals were obtained. Get them to show paperwork. Try to do your due diligence. And if you think something’s not right, don’t buy it.”