Three men were arrested in Japan for trying to pass hermitted crabs outside the country.
The suspects, aged 24, 26 and 27 years old, and widely identified in the Japanese media as Chinese nationals, were detained on Amami, a southern island where crustaceans with a spiral hull are a protected species.
The authorities were alerted from the live cargo of men when the hotel staff, who had been invited to take care of their luggage, noticed that the suitcases made a “noise of rustling,” the police told local media.
The police subsequently discovered “thousands” of hermit crabs, weighing about 95 kg. The third man turned out to have an additional 65 kg in another set of three suitcases.
“Our investigation is underway to identify if they had (crabs) to sell them, or to keep them as pets, or to eat them,” a police spokesman at the news agency said on Wednesday after the arrests. “We examine all the possibilities.”
Police said the hermit crabs were “a national treasure”, part of the vegetable and animal diversity of the island of Amami.
Hermit crabs – so named because they recover shells to live – can be regularly visible on the beaches of the popular tourist destination.
Crabs can be worth up to ¥ 20,000 (£ 103), according to the Japan Times.
