A South Korean man has been sent back to the United States to face criminal charges of attempting to illegally export thousands of California plants to Asia, according to the U.S. Attorney’s office.
Byungsu Kim, 46, is expected to plead guilty Monday in Los Angeles federal court. He and two others stand accused of removing over 600 pounds of desert succulents from state parks for illegal shipment overseas.
If convicted, Kim could spend up to five years in prison.
Prosecutors have alleged that Kim, who previously operated a plant nursery outside San Diego, and his two co-defendants pulled chalk lettuce—a blossom-like succulent that grows low to the ground—from Northern California state parks like DeMartin State Beach in Klamath and Russian Gulch in Mendocino County.
The trio then took them to an exporter in Compton. There, they allegedly planned to use fraudulent shipping permits to send the chalk lettuce to South Korea, where the species is a popular house plant variety.
Kim allegedly told a state agricultural inspector that the plants originated in San Diego County—more than 600 miles away from their true homes in Northern California.
When authorities raided the Compton site, they seized over 1,397 chalk lettuce specimens, according to a 2019 indictment against Kim and his alleged accomplices.
The black market rate for chalk lettuce in Seoul is as high as $100 per shrub. Federal authorities said the poachers could have received as much as $600,000 for the plants’ resale.
“Right now, these plants are a boom in Korea, China and Japan,” California game warden Pat Freeling told The Guardian in 2018. “It’s huge among domestic housewives. It’s a status thing,” he said.
Freeling said the frenzy of popularity around lotus flower succulents like chalk lettuce could be likened to collectible crazes like Pokémon.
In recent years, poachers have ripped thousands of pounds of chalk lettuce and other fashionable succulent species from California state parks. The crisis has caught the attention of state lawmakers. California Assembly Bill 223, introduced by Assemblymember Chris Ward of San Diego, is pending before the Senate Appropriations Committee and would add chalk lettuce to the California Endangered Species Act, thereby imposing steeper punishments for the illegal sale, transportation and export of the plant.
Kim was initially charged for poaching chalk lettuce three years ago but fled to Mexico before federal authorities could detain him. He was eventually arrested in South Africa and extradited to the United States in Oct. 2020.
Of Kim’s alleged accomplices, Bong Jun Kim, 44, pleaded guilty in 2019 to his involvement and was sentenced to time served; Youngin Back, 47, fled the U.S. and remains a fugitive, according to prosecutors.