{"id":55623,"date":"2024-02-28T17:35:50","date_gmt":"2024-02-29T01:35:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cjnotebook.com\/?p=55623"},"modified":"2024-02-28T17:35:50","modified_gmt":"2024-02-29T01:35:50","slug":"florida-man-guilty-of-illegally-exporting-thousands-of-turtles-to-germany-and-hong-kong","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cjnotebook.com\/?p=55623","title":{"rendered":"Florida Man Guilty of Illegally Exporting Thousands of Turtles to Germany and Hong Kong"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><span style=\"font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 20px;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-1958 alignleft\" src=\"https:\/\/cjnotebook.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/03\/U.S.-Fish-and-Wildlife-Service-252x300.gif\" alt=\"\" width=\"252\" height=\"300\" \/>A Florida man pleaded guilty today to federal criminal charges for conspiring to export thousands of turtles to Germany and Hong Kong illegally and falsifying documents to conceal his conduct, officials stated.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><span style=\"font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 20px;\">John Michael Kreatsoulas, 36, of Alva, pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to traffic wildlife and nine counts of falsifying records violating the Lacey Act.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><span style=\"font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 20px;\">According to the factual proffer in support of the plea and other documents included in the court record, from July 2015 to July 2021, Kreatsoulas was the owner and principal of Omni Reptiles, Inc., an unregistered Florida business located in Alva, Florida. <\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><span style=\"font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 20px;\">Omni was in the business of domestic and international wholesale trade of wildlife, including protected species of reptiles. Kreatsoulas and Omni shipped wildlife they sold to domestic and foreign customers, including to customers in Germany and Hong Kong through Miami International Airport.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><span style=\"font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 20px;\">Specifically, Kreatsoulas and his co-conspirators collected and captured various species of turtles, including three-stripe mud turtles and Florida mud turtles, from the wild in Florida and sold those turtles to interstate and foreign customers. <\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><span style=\"font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 20px;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-3918 alignright\" src=\"https:\/\/cjnotebook.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/06\/Department-of-Justice-300x300.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/cjnotebook.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/06\/Department-of-Justice-300x300.png 300w, https:\/\/cjnotebook.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/06\/Department-of-Justice-150x150.png 150w, https:\/\/cjnotebook.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/06\/Department-of-Justice.png 350w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/>Kreatsoulas then falsified U.S Fish and Wildlife Service Forms 3-177, which accompanied the international shipments, by including a false \u201cSource\u201d code attesting that the turtles were captive-bred and not wild-caught. <\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><span style=\"font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 20px;\">Kreatsoulas also falsified invoices related to the sale of the turtles, which purported to show that the turtles sold to co-conspirators in Florida and outside the United States were \u201ccaptive-bred\u201d hatchling three-stripe mud turtles when, in fact, they were taken from the wild by Kreatsoulas and his co-conspirators.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><span style=\"font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 20px;\">A sentencing hearing is scheduled for May 17.\u00a0 Kreatsoulas faces up to five years in prison for each count.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><span style=\"font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 20px;\">U.S. Attorney Markenzy Lapointe for the Southern District of Florida, Assistant Attorney General Todd Kim of the Justice Department\u2019s Environment and Natural Resources Division and Special Agent in Charge Douglas Ault of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) Southeast Region, made the announcement.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><span style=\"font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 20px;\">The Fish and Wildlife Service investigated the case.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><span style=\"font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 20px;\">Assistant U.S. Attorney Thomas Watts-FitzGerald for the Southern District of Florida and Senior Trial Attorney Gary N. Donner of the Environment and Natural Resources Division\u2019s Environmental Crimes Section are prosecuting this case.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A Florida man pleaded guilty today to federal criminal charges for conspiring to export thousands of turtles to Germany and Hong Kong illegally and falsifying documents to conceal his conduct, officials stated&#8230;.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":55624,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-55623","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Florida Man Guilty of Illegally Exporting Thousands of Turtles to Germany and Hong Kong<\/title>\n<meta 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