A Mexican national was sentenced to three years in prison for his role in a conspiracy to smuggle protected reptiles from Mexico to the United States, the Justice Department announced Friday.
Jorge Alonso Gutierrez pleaded guilty on April 28 to one count of conspiracy to traffic wildlife and one count of smuggling for his role as a middleman between several Mexico-based suppliers of wildlife and U.S.-based customers, according to the Department of Justice.
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Between April 2015 and February 2020, Gutierrez illegally transported or facilitated the illegal transportation of wildlife into the U.S. with a market value in excess of $3.5 million, the statement said. One of the animals brought into the U.S. and sold was a Central American river turtle, a species that is listed as endangered under the Endangered Species Act and protected under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species; many animals died during transit, the statement added.
On Sept. 22, 2016, Gutierrez transported wildlife received from a Juarez, Mexico, airport to a co-conspirator, neither of whom had a CITES permit for the smuggled animals, the Justice Department said. The wildlife was ultimately repackaged and sent by FedEx to buyers in the U.S., the department added.
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The introduction of invasive species has caused headaches for certain regions within the U.S. In an effort to control his state’s invasive python population, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis announced in June the annual Python Challenge, in which participants would capture large snakes to protect the Everglades wetlands. More than 13,000 pythons have been removed from the region since 2000, according to DeSantis.
Wildlife trafficking, valued at $7 billion to $23 billion every year, is the fourth most valuable global crime, according to the World Economic Forum.
