Chinese woman arrested in US for trying to smuggle turtles across lake into Canada
- Border Patrol agents found 29 live eastern box turtles in Wan Yee Ng’s bag. The protected turtles are sold on the Chinese black market, an agent said
Wan Yee Ng was arrested on the morning of June 28 at an Airbnb in Canaan 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 statement.
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 US$1,000 each, according to the agent’s statement.
Border Patrol agents first spotted Ng at the Airbnb in May when they noticed a car with Ontario plates travelling on a Vermont road in Canaan in an area used by smugglers, they said. Lake Wallace has been used for human and narcotic smuggling, the statement says. The vehicle had entered the US in Alburgh, Vermont, agents said.