Three fined $34,000 in Canada for involvement in black bear organ trafficking
A court in Montreal has fined three individuals a total of $34,000 for violating Canadian wildlife legislation.
Per a release issued by Environment and Climate Change Canada on Wednesday, the decisions were reached in July at the Palais de Justice concerning activities between May 2017 and August 2018.
According to information made public by Environment and Climate Change Canada, wildlife enforcement officers found that the individuals had “transported or illegally possessed black bear gallbladders for the purpose of transporting them” from New Brunswick to Quebec.
Officials said that on July 18, Tran Dinh Tuan Vu pleaded guilty to one count of violating the Wild Animal and Plant Protection and Regulation of International and Interprovincial Trade Act (WAPPRIITA) and was fined $5,000.
“The act forbids the import, export and interprovincial transportation of these species unless the specimens are accompanied by the appropriate documents (licences, permits),” states the government’s official page on WAPPRIITA. “In all cases, the act applies to the plant or animal, alive or dead, as well as to its parts and any derived products.”
A few days later, on July 25, two more individuals pleaded guilty to violating the WAPPRIITA — Thi Kim Loan Nguyen to one count and Minh Truong Hai Nguyen to four counts. They were fined $5,000 and $24,000, respectively.
The fines will be paid to the federal Environmental Damages Fund, which helps ensure penalties arising from damaging the environment can be invested back into benefiting it.
“The investigation was carried out as part of Operation Pochette, an operation aimed at dismantling a trafficking network for gallbladders and other parts of black bears,” officials stated, adding that New Brunswick and Quebec collaborated on the joint operation.
They also noted that black bear parts, especially gallbladders, can be sold at high prices and have propelled criminal networks to use “sophisticated methods to carry out illegal poaching, trafficking, imports and exports.”
Trading bear gallbladders is prohibited in Canada, both interprovincially and internationally.
“The majority of Canada’s provinces and territories prohibited the possession of bear gallbladders between the late 1980s and the early 1990s in order to reduce pressure on bear populations in Canada,” the release further reads.
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