Scheme to Sell Endangered Tortoises Ends With Prison Sentences
In this week’s crime blotter: tortoises from Madagascar for sale, a poached tiger, and smuggled snakes in a suitcase.
The smugglers wrapped the 316 radiated tortoises in tinfoil to avoid x-ray detection, flew them from Madagascar to China last February, and turned them over to an airport employee who snuck them to an apartment. The goal of the scheme: to breed the creatures, sell the offspring, and rake in big bucks from the sales.
But things didn’t work out that way.
Police soon busted the employee, who worked for Guangzhou Baiyun Airport in Guangzhou, a city in southeast China. They later arrested other members of the gang, including buyers from Beijing and Guangxi, a region in southern China that borders Vietnam.
Now a court has sentenced the leader of the operation to 11 years in prison, announced the NGO Wildlife Conservation
