A seized shipment of over 1,400 pieces of endangered sea turtle shell was laid bare on the floor of a Miami warehouse on Aug. 12, exposing a devastating enterprise in the illegal wildlife trade. The traffickers were using South Florida as a portal between the Caribbean and potential buyers in Asia.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection seized the 1,400 “scutes,” or shell sections—weighing 290 pounds (approx. 132 kg), and constituting one of the largest in-country seizures of endangered hawksbill and Green sea turtle shells ever—in November 2019.
