A Lee County, Florida man has been sentenced to prison for conspiring to smuggle thousands of protected turtles to Germany and Hong Kong.
John Michael Kreatsoulas, 36, of Alva, Florida, was sentenced to serve a year and a day in prison, with three years of supervised release, and ordered to pay a $10,000 fine. He was also barred by the court from engaging in any commercial activity involving wildlife.
Kreatsoulas had previously pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to traffic wildlife and nine counts of falsifying records in violation of the Lacey Act. The investigation revealed that Kreatsoulas, as the owner and principal of Omni Reptiles Inc., an unregistered Florida business, collected and captured various species of turtles, including three-stripe mud turtles and Florida mud turtles, from the wild in Florida and sold them to domestic and foreign customers.
According to court documents, Kreatsoulas and his co-conspirators falsified U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) Form 3-177, which accompanied international shipments, by including a false “Source” code attesting that the turtles were captive-bred and not wild-caught. Kreatsoulas also falsified invoices related to the sale of the turtles, which purported to show that the turtles sold to co-conspirators in Florida and outside the United States were “captive-bred” hatchling three-stripe mud turtles when, in fact, they were taken from the wild.
U.S. Attorney Markenzy Lapointe for the Southern District of Florida, Assistant Attorney General Todd Kim of the Justice Department’s Environment and Natural Resources Division, and Special Agent in Charge Douglas Ault of the FWS, Southeast Region, and Major James Barrow, Statewide Investigation Unit, Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission made the announcement.
FWS agents in Miami investigated this matter, and Assistant U.S. Attorney Thomas Watts-FitzGerald for the Southern District of Florida and Senior Trial Attorney Gary N. Donner of the Environmental Crimes Section of the Justice Department’s Environment and Natural Resources Division prosecuted the case.
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Key Facts
- State: Florida
- Agency: DOJ USAO
- Category: White Collar Crime|Organized Crime
- Source: Official Source ↗
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