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Tue Jul 2, 2024, 06:23 AM Jul 2024

Chinese woman facing charge of trying to smuggle turtles into Canada

https://torontosun.com/news/national/chinese-woman-facing-charge-of-trying-to-smuggle-turtles-into-canada

Chinese woman facing charge of trying to smuggle turtles into Canada

Associated Press
Lisa Rathke
Published Jul 01, 2024 • 2 minute read

A woman from China has been arrested at a Vermont lake bordering Quebec for trying to smuggle 29 eastern box turtles, a protected species, into Canada by kayak, according to U.S. Border Patrol agents.

Wan Yee Ng was arrested on Sunday morning at an Airbnb in Canaan, Vt., as she was about to get into an inflatable kayak with a duffel bag on Lake Wallace, according to an agent’s affidavit filed in federal court. Agents had been notified by Royal Canadian Mounted Police that two other people, including a man who was believed to be her husband, had started to paddle an inflatable watercraft from the Canadian side of the lake toward the United States, according to an agent’s affidavit.

The agents searched her heavy duffel bag and found 29 live eastern box turtles individually wrapped in socks, the affidavit states. Eastern box turtles are known to be sold on the Chinese black market for $1,000 each, according to the affidavit.

Ng is charged with attempting to export the turtles from the U.S., in violation of the Endangered Species Act. A federal judge on Friday ordered that she remain detained. The federal public defender’s office, which is representing her, declined to comment.

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