Chinese woman facing charge of trying to smuggle turtles across Vermont lake to Canada

Associated Press

Border Patrol agents say a woman from China has been arrested at a Vermont lake bordering Quebec for trying to smuggle 29 eastern box turtles, a protected species, into Canada by kayak. The woman was ordered detained on Friday. Wan Yee Ng was arrested on June 28 in Canaan as agents say she was about to get into an inflatable kayak with a duffle bag on Lake Wallace. The agents had been notified that two other people, including a man believed to be her husband, had started to paddle an inflatable boat from the Canadian side. Agents say they found 29 turtles wrapped individually in socks in the duffle bag. The federal public defender’s office declined to comment.