An Oxnard man has been sentenced to more than five years in prison for smuggling at least 1,700 reptiles worth more than $739,000 into the US over six years, the US Department of Justice announced Friday.
The animals, including small alligators and Yucatán turtles, were bought and sold on social media and came from Mexico, Hong Kong and elsewhere, an investigation led by the US Fish and Wildlife Service revealed.
From January 2016 to February 2022, Perez and his associates imported wild animals without the permits required by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora – and without declaring them, the Department of Justice said.
In August 2022, Jose Manuel Perez pleaded guilty in federal court to charges of smuggling goods into the country and wildlife trafficking.
The animals smuggled from Mexico were advertised on social media, with the defendants posting photos and videos of the reptiles being filmed in the wild.
People working with Perez would collect reptiles, including Mexican tortoises and Mexican beaded lizards, from the airport in Ciudad Juárez, then truck them over the border to El Paso.
According to federal authorities, Perez paid people a “crossing fee” each time they crossed the border. The payment depended on how many animals they traded, the size of the package and the level of risk they faced.
Sometimes Perez and someone else would go to Mexico to buy animals taken from the wild to be smuggled into the US.
At the time of the sentencing, Perez was already serving a nine-year sentence for possession of firearms. Due to convictions in Ventura County Superior Court for “street terrorism” and assault with a deadly weapon, he is prohibited from possessing firearms, the department said.
According to the San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance, wildlife trafficking is the second largest threat to species after habitat loss and the fourth most profitable wildlife trafficking industry in the world.
“Illegal wildlife trafficking not only reduces the number of target wildlife, it also affects related species, their interconnected ecosystems, local and global economies, and has the potential to impact human health through the transmission of zoonotic diseases,” the coalition said on its website.
Reptiles get caught up in the conflict. Earlier this month, the Department of Justice announced that a Daly City man accused of buying and exporting hundreds of poached turtles from Florida is facing wildlife trafficking charges.
The US attorney’s office for the Southern District of California and the Department of Justice’s Division of Natural Resources and Environment, as well as US Customs and Border Protection and Homeland Security Investigations, assisted state wildlife officials with the investigation into Perez’s dealings. The case was heard in the US District Court for the Central District of California.
