Prosecutor 300 of the URI in Usaquén laid charges against merchants Giovanny Murcia Gutierrez and William Guáqueta López, alleged responsible for the offenses of illicit handling of exotic wild species and illicit exploitation of renewable natural resources.
This proceeding was carried out in the 43 Penal Municipal Court in Bogotá, acting as Supervisory Court.
Defendants were caught in flagrante delicto, when they exhibited two African clawed frogs, two fiddler crabs, seven specimens of freshwater crabs, 31 specimens of apple snail, 12 of them alive and 19 only shells for sale, noted the Prosecutor in the case during a public hearing.
Transportation, sale or marketing of clawed frogs is forbidden because they are species that in their habitat, they destroy another kind of frogs causing irreversible damage to the fauna, said the representative of the Prosecutor’s Office.
This frog is an invasive species that must be eradicated from the country, because it endangers the national biodiversity, explained the judicial official.
Referring to the apple snail, they are source of food chain of birds, fish, turtles and caimans, so its marketing is prohibited, said the prosecutor.
The Environment Secretary proved that the defendants do not have permission for possession of exotic species or to commercialize them.