California man charged with smuggling protected turtles to Asia

A Daly City, California, man was arrested this week on federal wildlife trafficking charges after prosecutors said he conspired to illegally export hundreds of protected turtles to Asia using fraudulent paperwork.

Donald Do faces conspiracy and Lacey Act charges stemming from an alleged scheme between December 2022 and May 2024 in which he and a California accomplice attempted to export 292 loggerhead musk turtles to Taiwan, according to the indictment.

Prosecutors said Do’s co-conspirator obtained an export permit from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service by falsely claiming Do had hatched and raised the turtles himself — a claim the indictment says was untrue.

Armed with that permit, Do allegedly purchased musk turtles that had been poached from the wild in Florida and elsewhere and sought to acquire more, according to the indictment. Do told sellers he was willing to accept “wild caught” animals and directed them to ship turtles to San Francisco, prosecutors said.

Do and his co-conspirator also allegedly attempted to obtain more than 200 turtles from Albert Bazaar, a Louisiana man who was detained last week in Phoenix on turtle trafficking charges, according to the Justice Department.

When the export attempts failed, Do allegedly tried to cover his tracks by falsely telling his California co-conspirator that he had sold the turtles to other domestic buyers, prosecutors said.

The Lacey Act prohibits providing false information about wildlife in international or interstate commerce and bars the sale or transport of animals taken in violation of state law. Loggerhead musk turtles were added to the list of protected species under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora in November 2022. The United States and 184 other governments are signatories to the treaty, the Justice Department said.

A bond hearing is scheduled for May 21 and a status conference for July 31. If convicted, Do faces up to five years in prison and a $250,000 fine on each of the conspiracy and Lacey Act counts.

The arrest was announced by Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Adam Gustafson of the Justice Department’s Environment and Natural Resources Division, U.S. Attorney Craig Missakian for the Northern District of California, and USFWS Office of Law Enforcement Assistant Director Doug Ault.

The case was investigated by the USFWS as part of Operation Southern Hot Herps, a joint federal-state effort to detect and deter turtle poachers in the southeastern United States, with assistance from Homeland Security Investigations, the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, and the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission.

Senior Trial Attorney Ryan Connors of the Justice Department’s Environmental Crimes Section and Assistant U.S. Attorney Kenneth Chambers for the Northern District of California are prosecuting the case.