WOMAN SMUGGLER CAUGHT SNEAKING ENDANGERED TURTLES INTO CANADA IN A KAYAK
This story essentially verifies my voiced suspicions from a conversation I had a couple years ago when visiting the Eastern Townships in Quebec, just north of the border with the United States. I was talking to a local there who talked about how they always got stopped by suspicious authorities when boating on Lake Memphremagog (locals call it Magog, like the town at the north end), because the lake is partially in America, partially in Canada. The authorities thought people boating around might be smugglers. I laughed, but said there must be a reason. And now there’s a story of a woman who tried to smuggle 29 endangered turtles into Canada on a Kayak.
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SHE HOPED TO GO FROM VERMONT TO QUEBEC GOING ACROSS LAKE WALLACE
The woman was 41-year-old Wan Yee Ng, who had an inflatable kayak as her smuggling vehicle. She wrapped the endangered turtles in socks and put them all in a duffel bag. She then attempted to cross another lake that straddles the US/Canada border, Lake Wallace (also known as Wallace Pond). Wallace Pond is in northeastern Vermont and is far smaller than Lake Magog. But authorities intercepted her with the goods in hand, or kayak. I’m a little puzzled, as I was familiar with turtles being smuggled into North America from China, but not the reverse.
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ENDANGERED TURTLES CAN FETCH $1,000 A PIECE IN HONG KONG, INSTEAD SHE GETS PRISON
Apparently, the endangered turtles have quite the market in Hong Kong, the smuggler woman’s intended destination. The protected eastern box turtles can fetch up to $1,000 a piece there, which makes them an attractive commodity for a smuggler, kayak and all. But Wan Yee Ng never made it there with her illicit goods, and now faces sentencing in December, with a possible 10 years in prison as well as a fine as high as $250,0000. This crime certainly didn’t pay out very well. But it certainly explains why authorities watching the waterways shared by the U.S. and Canada are vigilant, and have been for years.
