A New York Metropolis man was charged this week with smuggling three Burmese pythons in his pants at a U.S-Canadian border crossing. Calvin Bautista, 36, is accused of bringing the hidden snakes on a bus that crossed into northern New York on July 15, 2018.
Importation of Burmese pythons is regulated by a global treaty and by federal rules itemizing them as "injurious to human beings."
Bautista, of Queens, was arraigned Tuesday in Albany on the federal smuggling cost and launched pending trial, based on a information launch from the workplace of U.S. Lawyer Carla B. Freedman.
An electronic mail looking for remark was despatched to Bautista's lawyer.
The cost carries the potential for a most sentence of 20 years in jail and a high-quality as excessive as $250,000, based on federal prosecutors.
The Burmese python, one of many world's largest snakes, is taken into account a susceptible species in its native Asia and is invasive in Florida, the place it threatens native animals.
In Florida, the snakes usually vary from six to 9 ft lengthy, based on the state's Fish and Wildlife Conservation Fee — although the longest ever captured within the state was over 18 ft lengthy. The snakes have few predators within the state and proliferated within the wild within the wake of Hurricane Andrew 30 years in the past.