The DOJ says the turtles are worth more than $550,000 in the Asian pet trade.
A man who has been charged by the U.S. Department of Justice in relation to trafficking turtle has been ordered held in custody after he was arrested. Albert Bazaar, formerly of Angie, Louisiana was charged with conspiracy and Lacey Act violations. The government alleges between January 2022 and December 2023, Bazaar poached and sold more than 1,700 loggerhead musk turtles (Sternotherus minor), 100 stripe-neck musk turtles (Sternotherus minor peltifer), and 15 striped mud turtles (Kinosternon baurii) from the state of Florida. In the state of Florida, the law protects fresh and marine turtle species from unregulated harvest. The government alleges that Bazaar aided and abetted an unnamed co-conspirator who is alleged to have exported the turtles from San Francisco, CA to Taiwan under the guise the reptiles were captive bred to obtain export permits.
Bazaar is alleged to have conducted eight transactions and illegally collecting the turtles from the wild and selling them to the exporter in San Francisco. It is alleged that the exporter funded Bazaar’s poaching trips to Louisiana and Florida, providing money that enabled Bazaar to purchase a boat and a van.
Bazaar is charged with “creating a declaration of captive bred wildlife that falsely stated to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) that the turtles were lawfully bred in Alabama and Georgia,” the U.S. Department of Justice wrote in a press release announcing the arrest.
Bazaar faces a maximum penalty of five years in prison if convicted of the conspiracy and Lacey Act charges and a $250,000 fine. he was under investigation and charged under the USFWS Operation Southern Hot Herps, “a joint federal and state law enforcement operation to detect and deter turtle poachers in the southeastern United States.”
