66-year-old arrested with 69 exotic animals in hidden car compartment at U.S.-Mexico border

On August 10th, a 66-year-old woman from Tijuana approached the San Ysidro Port of Entry with nothing to declare—or so she told the officer checking her papers. Georgina Bribiesca Chavez was driving a Volkswagen across the U.S.-Mexico border when a records check flagged an outstanding warrant connected to wildlife trafficking. She was arrested on the spot.

What happened next unfolded slowly. Customs and Border Protection seized her vehicle but didn't search it thoroughly that day. The next morning, when officers finally inspected the Volkswagen, they found something moving inside a concealed factory compartment hidden behind the rear seat. Inside were pillowcases—knotted shut, sealed with tape, and packed with living creatures.

The bags were rushed to the San Diego Zoo. When workers opened them, they discovered sixty abronia lizards, four venomous yellow-blotched palm pit vipers, three caimans, one baby crocodile, and an indigo snake. Sixty-nine animals in total, stuffed into fabric sacks and left in the August heat for nearly twenty-four hours while Chavez sat in custody without mentioning them to anyone. Three of the caimans did not survive the ordeal.

Chavez's arrest was the visible part of a much larger operation. Federal prosecutors say she and her alleged partner, Salvador Pelayo, a 28-year-old from Chula Vista, had been trafficking exotic animals across the border since 2023, generating tens of thousands of dollars in the process. An eighteen-month undercover investigation by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service had been building the case. In March 2025, agents watched Chavez hand over four protected Mexican box turtles for $2,600 in cash shortly after crossing into the United States. Those turtles were already in poor condition—wild-caught, suffering from respiratory disease—and all four died after being transferred to the Oakland Zoo.

Pelayo operated under an alias, "Jose Lopez," shipping protected Mexican and Yucatan box turtles to undercover agents in New York. Both men and women in this network understood what they were doing: moving endangered species across an international border for profit, with no regard for the animals' survival.

Chavez pleaded not guilty to federal wildlife trafficking charges and was ordered held without bond. Pelayo, arrested in July, also entered a not guilty plea. They face charges under the Lacey Act, a federal statute that carries a maximum sentence of five years in prison and a $250,000 fine. The investigation involved the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and California's Department of Fish and Wildlife—a coordinated effort to trace the network and hold its operators accountable. The case now moves through the federal courts in San Diego, with the question of how long this smuggling operation had been running and how many more animals had made the journey before this particular shipment was intercepted.