The smugglers moved their goods across borders using secret compartments, a Maryland meat processing plant and the help of a corrupt Louisiana turtle farm. Their lucrative product: rattlesnakes, snapping turtles and salamanders.

This was the portrait of a trade in illegal reptiles and amphibians that New York State environmental authorities painted on Thursday, when a two-year undercover investigation called Operation Shellshock ended with criminal charges against 17 people. More charges were filed by officials in other states and Canada, the New York officials said.

The case had the familiar ring of a drug bust, but it was instead built in the unlikely world of herpetological shows and included charges against leaders at organizations like the New York Turtle and Tortoise Society, the Long Island Herpetological Society, and the pet Web site turtlesale.com, a Florida-based company that is also facing New York charges.

“Our investigators began this operation with a simple question: Is there a commercial threat to our critical wildlife species?” Pete Grannis, the commissioner of the State Department of Environmental Conservation, which conducted the investigation, said in a statement.