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Wildlife Trafficker Gets 3 Years in Prison
Jorge Alonso Gutierrez, a citizen of Mexico, was sentenced today to three years in prison to be followed by three years of supervised release for his role in a conspiracy to smuggle protected reptiles from Mexico to the United States.
According to court documents, Gutierrez pleaded guilty on April 28 to a two-count information charging him with one count of conspiracy to traffic wildlife and one count of smuggling. Gutierrez admitted to being part of a conspiracy to smuggle wildlife from Mexico into the United States via El Paso, Texas.
The reptiles included a Central American river turtle (Dermatemys mawaii), a species that is protected under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) and is also listed as endangered under the Endangered Species Act.
Gutierrez was the middleman between several Mexico-based suppliers of wildlife and their U.S.-based customers. Gutierrez’s role as middleman was to coordinate and receive wildlife at the Jaurez, Mexico airport and deliver them to a co-conspirator in Juarez who smuggled them in his car into the United States through an El Paso border crossing.
Between April 2015 and February 2020, Gutierrez either illegally transported or caused to be illegally transported wildlife across the U.S.-Mexico border with a market value in excess of $3,500,000.
The sentencing was announced by Assistant Attorney General Todd Kim for the Environment and Natural Resources Division and Assistant Director for Law Enforcement Edward Grace of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS).
The investigation was handled by the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service’s Office of Law Enforcement, and the Environmental and Natural Resources Division’s Environmental Crimes Section. The government is represented by Trial Attorneys Mary Dee Carraway and Gary Donner of the Justice Department’s Environmental Crimes Section of the Environment and Natural Resources Division.
Key Facts
- State: Federal
- Category: Wildlife Trafficking|Crime
- Source: DOJ Press Release â†â€â€
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