Agents with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service received a tip that a box labeled “live fish keep cool” had arrived at a Detroit shipping center last month, according to a federal criminal complaint. Tipped off by U.S. border officials that Kai Xu had entered the country, agents spotted him on Aug. 5 outside the shipping center, where he removed the contents of a box, prosecutors allege in charging documents filed in federal court.

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Agents said they then saw Xu go between two trucks with a weighted grocery bag, then emerge without a bag 10 minutes later. That’s when one agent “noticed irregularly shaped bulges under Xu’s sweatpants on both legs,” the complaint alleges.

Border agents stopped him as he crossed into Canada, and they found the turtles, the court document states. “Specifically, Xu had 41 turtles tapped to his legs and 10 hidden between his legs,” Special Agent Kenneth Adams said in the criminal complaint. His quarry included eastern box turtles, red-eared sliders and diamondback terrapins.

Tim Debolski, hired as Xu’s lawyer on Thursday, told the Detroit News that he wanted time to review the evidence. “Everything will come out in due time,” Debolski told the paper.

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On Thursday, Xu was named in another criminal compliant involving turtle smuggling. In that one, Xu — referred to as a “known reptile smuggler” — is alleged to have picked up a box of live turtles on Tuesday from a UPS facility. He then headed to a hotel with Lihua Lin. The next day, prosecutors allege, he dropped Lin off at the airport with a suitcase filled with 200 live turtles. Lin was arrested before boarding a plane to China, the complaint reads.

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Lin, also Canadian, has been charged with smuggling as well and also appeared in federal court Thursday.

Gavin Shire of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service told the Detroit Free Press that turtle smuggling is generally related to a high demand for the creatures in Asia. “There’s now a burgeoning Asian market,” he said. There’s “a lot of both illegal and unregulated turtle consumption.”

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Those turtles can fetch a pretty penny; the Detroit News reported that one species allegedly found in Xu’s pants — the eastern turtle — is worth as much as $800.

“Although this sounds really extreme, we see cases like this across the nation,” U.S. Customs and Border Protection spokeswoman Melissa Maraj told the Detroit News. “People use a lot of ingenuity and creativity. Unfortunately, it’s a sign of desperation.”