The Border Patrol says that a woman from China was caught trying to bring 29 protected eastern box turtles into Canada in a boat at a lake in Vermont that borders Quebec.
A police report says that Wan Yee Ng was caught at an Airbnb in Canaan on the morning of June 28 as she was getting ready to go on Lake Wallace in an inflatable kayak with a duffle bag. A statement from an agent says that the Royal Canadian Mounted Police told them that two other people, including a man who was thought to be her husband, had started to paddle an inflatable boat from the Canadian side of the lake toward the US.
The statement says that when the police searched her big duffle bag, they found 29 live eastern box turtles each wrapped in a pair of socks. The document says that eastern box turtles are bought and sold on the black market in China for $1,000 each.
Ng is being charged with trying to take the turtles out of the U.S. without permission, which is against the Endangered Species Act. On Friday, a federal judge said she had to stay in jail. The federal public defender’s office, which is defending her, wouldn’t say anything.
Border Patrol agents first saw Ng at the Airbnb rental in May, when they saw a car with Ontario license plates driving on a Vermont road in Canaan, which is a place where people bring drugs into the country, according to the Border Patrol. The statement says that Lake Wallace has been used to smuggle people and drugs. Agents said the car came into the U.S. in Alburgh, Vermont.
The statement says that Ng came to the United States in May on a visitor visa to go to Fort Lee, New Jersey. Border Patrol officers found out on June 18 that she had come back into the U.S. in Buffalo in a car with a Quebec license plate. The affidavit says she planned to stay at the same Airbnb on Lake Wallace in Vermont on June 25. After that, they began to watch the land.