The black spotted turtle (Clemmys guttata) is classified as endangered on the ICUN-World Conservation Union’s Red List. (Photo: U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service)
The infamous wildlife smuggler stopped at the Canadian border with turtles taped to his groin and stuffed in his pants pleaded guilty Tuesday to multiple counts of smuggling and attempting to smuggle thousands of reptiles out of the country.
Kai Xu, who earned the moniker “Turtle Man” in international smuggling circles, pleaded guilty to six crimes in federal court in Ann Arbor, The Detroit News reports. Xu, who has been in custody since his September 2014 arrest, faces up to 10 years in prison.
Border patrol agents noticed he 27-year-old student at the University of Waterloo in Waterloo, Ontario, had “irregularly shaped bulges” in his pants, and he Xu and his suspected partner, Lihua Lin, 30, of Toronto, were arrested at the Detroit Metro Airport while trying to fly to Shanghai, China, with 200 turtles hidden in his luggage.
Xu had been the subject of an undercover investigation after authorities received a tip that he placed online orders for the turtles, some of them endangered, and traveled to the United States to pick them up for shipment to China, or to return with them to Ontario, where he lived.
Exporting wildlife from the United States without a government permit is illegal.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Sara Woodward said Xu is a prolific trafficker in a lucrative trade who regularly dealt in turtle shipments worth $30,000, $80,000 or $125,000.

“In China, the turtles he smuggles are worth two to three times the amount he pays here,” Woodward said.
Xu’s attorney, Matt Borgula, declined to comment after the plea was entered.
One species of turtle found in Xu’s pants goes for $800 on the black market. The turtles included Eastern box turtles, diamondback Terrapins, endangered spotted turtles and red-eared sliders, one of the world’s most invasive species.
Authorities have said the incident at the Detroit-Windsor Tunnel was one of a string of bizarre smuggling attempts to feed the voracious appetite for the reptiles worldwide. Some are destined for the dinner table, but others are smuggled as pets. The turtle market is especially lucrative in China and other Asian countries.
“You see some extreme cases in which people try to smuggle things. Although this sounds really extreme, we see cases like this across the nation,” U.S. Customs and Border Protection Melissa Maraj told The Detroit News at the time of Xu’s arrest. “People use a lot of ingenuity and creativity. …”
Officials with the U.S. Fish & Wildlife service have said illegal wildlife trafficking is as lucrative as international drug smuggling, but significantly less risky, and conservationists warn that as the illegal movement of turtles and tortoises skyrockets, little is done to track down to traders or kingpins in the tortoise and turtle racket.