Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
Smugglers nabbed nearly 6,000 protected turtles
Planned for the animals to be sold as pets in China
These smugglers snatched 5,581 protected turtles from Florida and shipped them to Hong Kong, so the reptiles could be resold as pets in China, authorities say.
One of the turtle thieves even joked that his turtle-poacher friend was so greedy, he had purloined a substantial part of the turtle population from Southeast Florida, prosecutors said. The men sent the turtles in at least 16 shipments abroad over the course of three years.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Peter Burchell Outerbridge, speaking at a sentencing hearing Wednesday for one of the co-conspirators, called the turtle operation “a huge case in terms of total volume.”
The market value of the turtles shipped to China is estimated to be between $250,000 to $550,000, according to court documents.
The plot began to unravel when a turtle-filled package from a pet shop in Eustis, a city more than 30 miles north of Orlando, was intercepted by federal wildlife agents at Miami International Airport on March 19, 2019.
Agents found two types of turtles in the container: wild-caught Florida Mud Turtles, which cannot be harvested under state law, and Florida Box Turtles, a vulnerable species whose export is federally prohibited without a license.
After agents intercepted three other similar shipments, they decided to pay a visit to Michael Allen Pata, the pet shop owner and exporter.
Pata promptly offered to
cooperate with law enforcement, and helped ensnare his co-conspirators, Hong Kong reptile reseller Vincent Cheung and Florida turtle poacher Michael Boesenberg, also known as “Tattoo.”
Cheung, who according to prosecutors was “at the receiving end of a number of illicit wildlife exportations,” was sentenced in December to six months in federal prison by Federal District Court Judge Kathleen Williams after being lured to the United States for a reptile show and arrested in California on Aug. 8, 2019.
“He’s very remorseful about dealing in turtles that are protected species,” said Mark Rankine, Cheung’s attorney, after explaining that the turtles were sold as pets.
Boesenberg, a Fort Myers resident, pleaded guilty to the turtle smuggling last November, and is set to be sentenced on Jan. 27 by Federal District Court Judge Ursula Ungaro. He faces up to five years in prison. His attorney could not be reached for comment.
Pata, who was sentenced Wednesday to four years of probation, helped authorities collect over 30 hours of recorded conversations between the coconspirators during the investigation, prosecutors revealed.
At one point, the co-conspirators joked on a recorded call that Boesenberg was greedily taking many turtles from the population, prosecutors said.
“Mr. Pata, you strayed in your life in doing this,” the judge said as she sentenced him. “But in your cooperation you demonstrated remorse and willingness to make right what you did.”
Turtle conservation experts, however, caution that the poaching may have repercussions for decades to come.
“It can take decades for populations that have been heavily harvested to recover,” said Matt Aresco, a biologist and turtle expert who helped Florida pass its 2009 ban on wild-caught commercial turtle sales.
Aresco said the wildcaught Florida Box Turtles, Diamondback Terrapins, Spotted Turtles, and Mud Turtles that the coconspirators exported can live long lives, but that very few of the species’ juvenile population actually makes it to adulthood, meaning that turtle replacement can be a slow process.
“It’s sad that these poachers would exploit and steal from nature just for pure greed,” he added.