CALIFORNIA: A Southern California couple pleaded guilty to smuggling more than 900 endangered sea turtle eggs into the United States from Mexico.
Hemet residents Jose, 64 and Olga, 52, Jimenez entered their pleas Friday in San Diego to federal smuggling and conspiracy charges.
Authorities say the couple tried to smuggle the eggs into the U.S. in 2014 in coolers under layers of ice, fish and shrimp.
The eggs are considered a delicacy and an aphrodisiac in Asia, where they may sell for hundreds of dollars.
The couple also agreed to forfeit the eggs and pay up to $9,000 in restitution to the Mexican government.
They still could face up to 50 years in prison when they’re sentenced in May.
The couple was indicted in San Diego on charges of smuggling sea turtle eggs into the United States from Mexico, in December.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Melanie Pierson said the indictment marked the first time criminal charges had been brought in the Southern District of California for smuggling sea turtle eggs.
The eggs came from ‘clutches’ of 100 to 200 laid in the sand by two species of sea turtle, olive ridley and Kemp’s ridley sea turtles, officials said.
Both are protected under the U.S. Endangered Species Act, and both are subject to protection under the 1981 Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species, which the United States and Mexico signed.
The turtles lay their eggs in the sand on beaches in southern Mexico before returning to the ocean. In Mexico, Central America and some Asian cultures, the eggs are thought to have aphrodisiac properties.
According to the indictment, Olga Jimenez obtained 911 eggs in Nayarit, Mexico, loaded them into a cooler and boarded a bus to Tijuana, a border city just south of San Diego.
Her husband then drove to Tijuana, where the couple allegedly moved the eggs to two coolers, covered them with fish and shrimp, and then passed them off to a hired driver, without informing him of the eggs.
