Duo charged with smuggling $17M worth of sea cucumbers

SAN DIEGO — Charges against a father-son partnership for allegedly smuggling more than $17 million worth of sea cucumbers to the United States and exporting them to Asia sheds light on a growing and lucrative illegal cross-border trade.

David Mayorquin and his father, Ramon Torres Mayorquin, are accused of a scheme to buy the illegally harvested animals from poachers in Mexico’s Yucatan peninsula, pay for them under fake names and underestimate their weight and value to inspectors at San Diego’s Otay Mesa border crossing, across from Tijuana, Mexico. From San Diego, they allegedly shipped the product to Asia, including China, where they are delicacies in Chinese dishes, prized for medicinal value and considered an aphrodisiac.

Border inspectors have spotted smuggled Mexican sea cucumbers for years, but the charges against the Mayorquins and their family business, Blessings Inc., are striking for the multi-ton shipments. Authorities say they sell for $300 to $500 a kilogram in Asia, helping explain the draw for poachers and smugglers.

David Mayorquin, who is listed as the company’s chief executive officer in public records, allegedly bought $13 million worth of sea cucumbers, knowing they were harvested without a permit or out of season, and sold them for $17.5 million. The indictment, filed in federal court in San Diego, lists transactions from January 2010 to July 2012.

U.S. Homeland Security Investigations launched an investigation around 2012 after company transactions raised suspicions.

Investigators found emails that allegedly show the family communicating with others about the illegal purchases, Homeland Security Investigations said.

“I hope you’re aware that you are asking for 17 tons and we have no papers for that amount since Carlos’ entire product is without invoice,” a supplier wrote David Mayorquin in 2011, which is mentioned in the indictment. “Nearly 10 tons would be travelling without papers.”

The defendants also bribed Mexican officials, prosecutors say. One email listed in the indictment shows Mayorquin being asked to contribute $32,000 for payoffs.

Sea cucumbers, which are shaped like cucumbers with small feet and measure up to two metres long, are echinoderms, a family that includes starfish and sea urchin.

Harvesting sea cucumbers is permitted in the United States and many parts of the world, but with limited quantities and only during high season.