Posted on 04/29/2012 11:19:32 AM PDT by nickcarraway
Eliodoro Soria Fonseca attempted to smuggle 159-pounds of iguana meat into the U.S. from Mexico in June 2011
A man accused of attempting to smuggle 159-pounds of iguana meat into the United States from Mexico has been sentenced to two years in prison.
On June 7, 2011, Las Vegas resident Eliodoro Soria Fonseca, 38, entered the U.S. from Mexico at the Otay Mesa Port of Entry with a strange, undeclared haul. According to authorities, Fonseca entered with several coolers filled with iguana meat, which he intentionally concealed underneath fish.
When Officers with Customs and Border Protection at the Otay Mesa Port of Entry searched Fonseca’s coolers, they found the beheaded bodies of 115 iguanas that had also been skinned and deboned.
The iguana meat weighed 159-pounds.
As part of his guilty plea, Fonseca admitted he intentionally hid the meat, which he knew he should have declared to U.S. authorities upon entry.
Assistant United States Attorney Melanie Pierson represented the U.S. at Fonseca’s sentencing hearing on Thursday and said the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service laboratory determined the meat to be of the species commonly known as the Green Iguana. That species is covered by the Convention on International Trade and Endangered Species (CITES). The species is not yet endangered, but may become threatened with extinction if trade is not tightly controlled. According to Pierson, Fonseca did not have any proper documentation for the importation of the iguana meat, including an import license from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service or a CITES permit.
Additionally, sentencing documents filed in court stated that a researcher for the Conservation and Sustainable Use of Iguanas of the Priority Species Protection Council in Mexico concluded that removing more than 100 iguanas from the Nyarit area – where Fonseca obtained the reptiles – essentially “means that the local population was technically wiped out.”
Fonseca admitted in his guilty plea that he imported the meat for the purpose of serving it as food to humans. The U.S. noted during the hearing that iguana meat frequently carries Salmonella bacteria, which can be transmitted to people who eat contaminated food. According to the International Journal of Food Microbiology, Salmonella is a serious public health risk. Most people infected with Salmonella develop diarrhea, fever and abdominal cramps, and in a small number of cases, suffer from severe illness and even death. In the end, the Honorable Janis L. Sammartino sentenced Fonseca to 24 months in prison for his illegal smuggling attempt.
Wish I was in Tijuana...
Does Barry like iguana meat?
/johnny
Salmonella? Maybe we should ban chicken.
Does Barry like iguana meat?’
yet Puerto Rico has vowed to kill every single on on the island and sell for meat...
Wish they’d kill those damn Coquis.
i heard that...
I ate iguana in Honduras while in the military. It’s funny, but as soon as I took the first bite, the “tastes like chicken” phrase went through my mind. It does taste like chicken, but the texture was a little stringy. It may be because it was prepared by a group of Honduran sailors about 250 miles off the coast of Honduras on a small island. They cooked it with rice and beans.
I love me some iguana tamales with red sauce. And beans and rice, of course.
/johnny
Pretty sure they eat lizards in Indonesia. Not quite the same sort but you’ve eaten one lizard, you’ve eaten most of ‘em. Tastes like chicken, I’ve heard. ‘Gator is a sort of lizard, and it does taste like a slightly chewy chicken.
aka “Bamboo Chicken”
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.