Watching from a distance, wardens saw what they were stuffing inside: Dudleya succulents, which have spiky blue-green leaves immediately recognizable to anyone on Pinterest and Instagram. “Right now these plants are a boom in Korea, China and Japan,” Patrick Freeling, a game warden with the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, told the Guardian last year. The tipster had suspected that the boxes held abalone, a type of edible sea snail often illegally harvested by divers in Northern California. They had just dropped off approximately 3,715 succulents at a commercial exporter’s warehouse when the wardens pulled them over. When questioned, Youngin Back and Bong Jun Kim admitted to illegally collecting wild plants, according to a probable cause statement.

Source: National Post June 04, 2019 12:42 UTC