In what might be the slowest crime of the year, a woman who was kayaking across a Vermont lake into Canada was arrested after it was discovered she was trying to smuggle 29 protected turtles into the country.
According to a Border Patrol agent’s affidavit filed in federal court last week, obtained by Fox News, Wan Yee Ng, 41, was arrested loading up an inflatable boat at an Airbnb in Canaan, Vermont.
Border Patrol agents searched the woman’s belongings after being tipped off by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. Inside her duffle bag, they found Eastern Box turtles individually wrapped in socks.
The Mounties also found that Ng’s husband and another person were paddling a kayak from the Canadian side of Lake Wallace toward the US, court documents showed.
According to the New York Post, Eastern Box turtles go for $1,000 a piece on the Chinese black market.
The affidavit showed that Ng’s cell phone records reportedly showed she intended to sell the reptiles in Hong Kong.
Ng is reportedly from Hong Kong but has been living in Canada. On Friday, she pleaded guilty in US District Court to a single count of attempting to smuggle a protected species.
Her sentencing is scheduled for December, where she could receive as much as 10 years in prison and a fine of up to $250,000.