Man stole succulents from California state parks and took them to South Korea, feds say

A South Korean man was sentenced to two years in federal prison after he was accused of stealing at least $150,000 worth of succulent plants from state parks in California and illegally exporting them to his native country.

He must also pay $3,985 in restitution, the Department of Justice said in a Jan. 20 news release.

Byungsu Kim, 46, pleaded guilty in September to one count of attempting to export plants taken in violation of state law, according to the release.

Kim’s attorney did not immediately respond to a request for comment from McClatchy News on Jan. 21.

According to the release, Kim and two other co-defendants, Youngin Back, 47, and Bong Jun Kim, 46, drove from Los Angeles International Airport to Crescent City, California, on Oct. 11, 2018.

From Oct. 14-16, the Department of Justice said, the three men harvested Dudleya plants from two state parks. Officials believe Kim knew taking the plants was illegal — according to the release, he had searched online for “poaching succulents” and “dudleya,” and had read a news release about the arrest and convictions of previous Dudleya poachers.

Dudleya is a genus of succulent plants native to the southwestern United States, according to the California Native Plant Society. The genus includes 47 species — of those, about 26 are native to California, and 10 of California’s native species are ranked as threatened or endangered under federal or state law, the organization said on its website.

On Oct. 22, 2018, Kim and the other two men took the plants to a nursery in Vista. From there, they traveled to another state park, where they poached more Dudleya plants and brought them to the nursery, the Department of Justice said in the release.

The three men then transported the plants to an exporter in Compton. When they left, local law enforcement searched the shipping company and found the poached plants — 3,715 of them, according to the release.

California law enforcement officials had confiscated Kim’s passport after he was arrested in October 2018 on state charges, the release said. Afterward, Kim obtained a new passport by telling the South Korean Consulate in Los Angeles that he lost the original, the release said.

In May 2019, after finding out about the pending criminal charges, Kim and Back fled to Mexico. The two then traveled to South Korea, the release said.

Back remains a fugitive, but Kim was arrested in South Africa in October 2019 on charges relating to another plant poaching scheme, the release said. He pleaded guilty to those charges, was taken into custody and extradited to the U.S. a year later.

Kim’s attorney, Jeremy Lessem, said during his sentencing hearing on Jan. 20 that there was no evidence that Kim had previously smuggled plants, and that Kim never denied that he had purchased plants in California to export to South Korea, Courthouse News reported.

“The idea that this was some hugely profitable enterprise that was making Mr. Kim extremely wealthy is not supported by the reports,” Lessem said, according to Courthouse News.

Lessem also argued that the time Kim spent in custody in South Africa should be taken into account during his sentencing, Courthouse News reported.

“I believe he’s learned his lesson, and certainly been adequately punished for what he has done,” Lessem said.

In a sentencing memo issued by the Department of Justice on Jan. 6, prosecutors said Kim was the “ringleader” of the scheme and that he had recruited the other two men, supervised the crimes and paid for their expenses.

The memo also said that Kim had carried out the same scheme many times, having traveled to the U.S. more than 50 times since 2009, often with “tens of thousands of dollars in cash” and “fake phytosanitary certificates.”

“Many of the plants that the defendant poached from California state parks were decades old,” the memo said.

At his sentencing, Kim said that after his indictment, he experienced various hardships — his parents entered a nursing home facility, his wife left him, and he hasn’t seen his children in three years. He added that he felt isolated in jail, especially as someone who doesn’t speak English, and that he had been assaulted, leaving him with injuries that required his jaw to be wired shut, Courthouse News reported.

“All these things happened because of my lack of knowledge,” he said through a translator, according to Courthouse News. “If I had known a little bit more about America, if I had known a little bit more about the laws in America, I would not have done this stupid wrongdoing.”

The sentence U.S. District Judge George Wu gave Kim was one year less than the 36 months that the government requested, Courthouse News reported. Wu also accounted for the time Kim spent incarcerated in South Africa and the communication difficulties he faced.

The estimated value of the stolen plants on the South Korean black market would have been between $113,755 and $255,415, the sentencing memo said.

This story was originally published January 21, 2022 at 11:07 AM with the headline "Man stole succulents from California state parks and took them to South Korea, feds say."