Maybe you weren't aware, but there's a cactus black marketThese aren't the huge, needle laden plants you might have in mind. The Ariocarpus fissuratus plants, better known as the Living Rock cactus are slow growing and very small. Parts of them are velvety and leathery. They live in the Big Bend region and Northern Mexico.
The US fish and Wildlife service took part in the arrests of four people for stealing and transporting the plants.
Journalist Sara Button wrote about this underground market for the Big Bend Sentinel. "They would sell them overseas to places like Europe and Asia, and they could make between 500 and a thousand dollars per cactus, which is pretty outrageous."
She says there are collectors in Europe that look for the big Living Rock cacti. They're hard to come by because they take decades to grow that big.
The culprits in this case got nine years probation and a fine.
Some areas in and around Big Bend have been stripped of the plant.