A woman who tied about 1,000 cacti and succulents to her body in an attempt to smuggle into New Zealand in 2019 was sentenced to 100 hours of community service and 12 months of intensive supervision for violating the country’s biosafety laws, government officials said.
The woman, Wenqing Li, 38, was picked up twice with plants and seeds at Auckland International Airport on her return from China to her home in Auckland, New Zealand’s Ministry of Primary Industries said in a statement. The Ministry said Li intended to sell the plants on Trade Me, an online classified ad site similar to Craigslist.
In the first incident, on March 24, 2019, Ms. Li tied stockings containing 947 succulents and cacti to her body and tried to shove them into the country, the ministry said.
An airport employee approached Mrs. I read with a detection dog, who noticed her, and she ran to the bathroom to try to get rid of the plants, said Gary Orr, director of compliance services at the ministry. Among the agency’s duties is compliance with biosafety rules designed to prevent diseases and harmful organisms from contaminating native plants and animals.
“What she did was put them in the trash cans in the men’s room thinking we wouldn’t look there because she was a woman,” said Orr. “But our team is attentive to this type of trickery.”
Airport officials searched the bathrooms and found “a large amount of plant material”, including “three socks full of succulents and cacti,” the statement said. The plants included eight endangered species and were worth more than $ 7,000.
The police seized the goods and released Mrs. I did, but Orr’s department opened an investigation.
Four months later, Li was again caught trying to smuggle unauthorized goods into the country, Orr said.
On July 23, 2019, 142 seeds hidden in commercially packaged iPad cases and more than 200 potted plants were found in Li’s luggage, the ministry said. A snail and pieces of fern stem were contained in the potted plants. Orr said the plant pots were “wrapped in moldy paper”.
“They were dirty,” he said, “so they could be bringing all kinds of diseases.”
He added that it is particularly “aggravating” that some of the plant species are threatened with extinction, because all unauthorized live species confiscated at the airport must be destroyed or sacrificed.
“It’s an absolute shame, especially when these things are being classified as endangered – you don’t want to do anything to make it worse,” said Orr. However, he said, destroying plants is “essential to protecting New Zealand”.
New Zealand depends on its trade industry, said Orr, so “it is very important for us that our foreign markets understand that the products we send abroad are free from pests and diseases”.
He added that New Zealand has its own unique animals and plants that would be “significantly affected” by the introduction of new species or diseases.
Ms. Li pleaded guilty in November to charges, including a conscious attempt to possess unauthorized goods and trade in an endangered species. She was sentenced on Tuesday by Judge Richard McIlraith at Auckland’s Manukau District Court.
Simon Anderson, regional team manager for the ministry’s compliance investigations department, said in a statement on Wednesday that the sentence “serves as a good reminder that anyone smuggling plants or other threatened species into New Zealand can expect be processed “.