Fifty live turtles claimed to be worth HK$5 million (US$643,800) in total have been stolen from an industrial building in Hong Kong, prompting police to launch a citywide manhunt for three burglars.

A four-minute video posted online shows two of three black-clad men stealing turtles from plastic boxes.

One man wearing a black hoodie but not a mask can be seen in the clip removing the reptiles from the boxes on shelves on metal frames and stuffing them into bags. The footage shows two men apparently making a final inspection before leaving the premises.

A source said on Tuesday that surveillance camera footage showed three men in their thirties breaking into a 23rd-floor unit of the Lung Shing Factory Building on Texaco Road in Tsuen Wan at around 8.16am and leaving four minutes later.

According to the insider, the unit houses a licensed turtle breeding farm and Eastern box turtles were stolen.

“The turtles are estimated to have a street value of around HK$10,000 each, but the person in charge of the farm insists that they are valued at HK$100,000 each,” he said, adding the man did not provide any records or documents to prove the total value of the 50 turtles.

The break-in was discovered at around 10am on Tuesday when a 40-year-old occupant of the unit found the front door had been forced open, according to the force.

A police spokeswoman said the premises had also been ransacked.

“The caller claimed that 50 turtles, valued at HK$5 million in total, were stolen from the industrial unit,” she said, adding that officers were still verifying the value of the reptiles.

Detectives from the Tsuen Wan criminal investigation unit are following up on the case.

The source said the three burglars in the surveillance camera footage were thought to be aged between 30 and 40 and all around 1.8 metres tall, with one of them fat.

As of Tuesday afternoon, no arrests had been made.

Woman pleads guilty over attempt to smuggle turtles by kayak into Canada

A woman who wanted to smuggle turtles across a lake and into Canada by hiding the creatures using socks in a duffle bag has pleaded guilty to a smuggling charge.

Wan Yee Ng was arrested in June in Vermont as she was about to enter an inflatable kayak with the bag of 29 eastern box turtles and paddle across Lake Wallace to the border with Canada, according to an affidavit filed in federal court.

Eastern box turtles are a protected species and have vivid, orange and yellow markings atop a dark brown shell. They are sold on the black market in China for $1,000, the Associated Press reported.

Ng pleaded guilty to a single count of attempting to smuggle eastern box turtles and faces up to 10 years in prison and as much as a $250,000 fine.

On 26 June, as Ng prepared to enter the kayak in Vermont, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police notified border patrol agents that two other individuals had launched an inflatable watercraft on the Canadian side of the lake. The two turned out to be Ng’s husband and another person.

Lake Wallace is an international body of water that has been used for human and narcotic smuggling.

The federal government has arrested a number of people over the last year for allegedly trying to smuggle the turtles to China.

In March, a grand jury indicted a man from Hong Kong who had allegedly mislabeled packages containing 40 protected turtles as containing almonds and chocolate cookies, an affidavit states.

The Turtle Survival Alliance, a conservation organization, describes the turtle as “vulnerable” because of habitat destruction and fragmentation; road and railroad mortality; disease transmission; and collection for personal use and the illegal pet trade.

Main Source: SCMP/ Guardian