A wildlife trafficker, Jose Manuel Perez, was sentenced May 28 to 65 months in prison for smuggling at least 1,700 reptiles into the United States from Mexico, Hong Kong and other locations without proper permits or declarations. Prosecutors say the operation
By the time the sentence was handed down, the numbers had already stopped being abstract. On May 28, Jose Manuel Perez was sentenced to 65 months in prison for a wildlife smuggling scheme that prosecutors say brought at least 1,700 reptiles into the United States illegally.
The Department of Justice announced the sentence on May 29, describing a long-running operation from January 2016 to February 2022. During that period. Perez and co-conspirators smuggled reptiles into the country from Mexico. Hong Kong and elsewhere. prosecutors said—without the proper permits or declaring the animals at border crossings.
To prosecutors, the scope was clear: the scheme brought in more than $739,000.
Perez, who was living in Southern California at the time, pleaded guilty in August 2022 to smuggling goods into the U.S. and wildlife trafficking charges.
How the operation worked
Prosecutors said Perez negotiated purchase and delivery terms through social media. He also advertised the animals he was selling on social platforms, posting photos that showed the reptiles being caught in the wild.
The DOJ said the smuggled animals were sourced from Mexico and included Yucatán box turtles, Mexican box turtles, baby crocodiles, and Mexican beaded lizards. From there, prosecutors described a route that began with pickups at an international airport in Ciudad Juarez.
Ciudad Juarez is a border town on the edge of west Texas. According to the DOJ, after the animals were gathered at the airport, Perez and others drove roughly 10 miles to a border crossing into El Paso. Co-conspirators were paid a fee for each border crossing, prosecutors said.
The government also said Perez traveled to Mexico on several occasions to retrieve the animals and smuggle them into the U.S.
A sentence layered onto an existing one
Perez is not new to prison time. The DOJ said he was already serving a nine-year prison sentence for firearms possession by a felon, and the 65-month sentence adds another major punishment for the wildlife trafficking case.
Taken together. the timeline and the logistics prosecutors laid out—social media sales. live capture photos. airport pickup in Ciudad Juarez. and repeated trips to the border—spell out a process built to move animals quickly and avoid customs requirements. In this case. the courts are treating that pattern as criminal conduct with real reach. both in the size of the shipment and the money prosecutors say it produced.
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