A federal judge sentenced Jose Manuel Perez to more than five years in prison for smuggling at least 1,700 reptiles worth more than $739,000 into the United States over six years. Prosecutors said the animals—including baby crocodiles and Yucatán box turtles—w
The case didn’t start with a dramatic stop at the border. It started, prosecutors said, with social media posts—photos and videos of reptiles being captured in the wild—and a steady pipeline that kept moving animals into the country without the paperwork that makes trade legal.
On Friday, the U.S. Department of Justice announced that an Oxnard man, Jose Manuel Perez, was sentenced to more than five years in prison for smuggling at least 1,700 reptiles worth more than $739,000 into the United States over six years.
The animals included baby crocodiles and Yucatán box turtles. The investigation, led by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, found the reptiles were bought and sold through social media and came from Mexico, Hong Kong, and elsewhere.
From January 2016 to February 2022. federal authorities said Perez and co-conspirators brought wild animals into the country without the permits required by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora—and without declaring the shipments. In August 2022. Perez pleaded guilty in federal court to one count of smuggling goods into the country and one count of wildlife trafficking.
Prosecutors described a system that relied on movement across the U.S.-Mexico border and on people stationed at multiple points along the route. They said animals taken from the wild in Mexico were advertised online by the defendants, with posts showing the reptiles being collected.
People working with Perez would gather the animals—federal authorities named Mexican box turtles and Mexican beaded lizards among them—then bring them from an airport in Ciudad Juárez to El Paso. Each time they crossed. Perez allegedly paid a “crossing fee.” Prosecutors said the payment depended on how many animals were being trafficked. the size of the package. and the level of risk involved.
At times, Perez and another person traveled to Mexico to buy reptiles taken from the wild. After they were shipped, the animals were transported to Perez’s home—first in Missouri and then in California after he moved there.
When the sentence was handed down, Perez was already serving nine years in prison for felony possession of firearms. The Justice Department said his prior convictions in Ventura County Superior Court for “street terrorism” and assault with a deadly weapon mean he is not allowed to have firearms.
The case also landed in a broader national crackdown on wildlife trafficking. The Justice Department said the investigation into Perez’s dealings was supported by the U.S. attorney’s office for the Southern District of California. a section of the Environment and Natural Resources Division. along with U.S. Customs and Border Protection and Homeland Security Investigations.
It was prosecuted in U.S. District Court for the Central District of California.
Reptiles can be caught in the middle of an illegal economy that moves fast and scales quietly. The San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance has said illegal wildlife trafficking is the second-largest threat to species after habitat loss. and the world’s fourth-most-lucrative trafficking industry. The alliance also warns that the harm doesn’t stop at the animals being targeted. saying it can affect related species. interconnected ecosystems. local and global economies. and may pose a risk to human health through zoonotic disease transmission.
Earlier this month, the Justice Department announced that a Daly City man suspected of purchasing and exporting hundreds of poached turtles from Florida was facing federal wildlife trafficking charges.
For Perez, the consequences now come through a federal prison sentence—grounded, prosecutors said, in a six-year run fueled by online sales, cross-border fees, and the deliberate choice to move animals without required permits or declarations.
Oxnard man Jose Manuel Perez reptile smuggling baby crocodiles Yucatán box turtles CITES wildlife trafficking U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service U.S. Department of Justice