A woman from China has pleaded guilty to attempting to smuggle 29 eastern box turtles, a protected species, by kayak across a Vermont lake into Canada.
BURLINTON, Vt. — A woman from China pleaded guilty Friday to attempting to smuggle 29 eastern box turtles, a protected species, by kayak across a Vermont lake to Canada.
Wan Yee Ng, 41, was arrested at an Airbnb in Canaan on the morning of June 28 as she was about to get into an inflatable kayak with a duffel bag on Lake Wallace, according to the affidavit of a Border Patrol agent filed in federal court had been submitted.
Officers had been notified by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police that two other people, including a man believed to be her husband, had been paddling an inflatable watercraft from the Canadian side of the lake toward the United States, according to court documents.
The officers searched her heavy duffel bag and found 29 live box turtles individually wrapped in socks, the affidavit said. Eastern box turtles are known to sell for $1,000 each on the Chinese black market, the affidavit said.
Her cellphone was seized and a police search found communications showing she was trying to smuggle the turtles into Canada so they could eventually be sold for a profit in Hong Kong, according to the plea deal. Ng, from Hong Kong, lived in Canada.
She pleaded guilty Friday to unlawfully attempting to export and ship 29 box turtles from the United States in violation of the law. VTDigger first reported on the plea deal.
She will be sentenced in December and faces up to 10 years in prison and a fine of up to $250,000.