Dude fined 50k for trying to smuggle 4000 pounds of live Asian carp

These fish must be delicious. They'd have to be now that we know for sure there are real live Asian Carp runners trying to keister their wares across the borders at great financial risk.

Most of the recent Asian carp panic in Michigan and the upper Midwest has been directed at the threat posed by fish escaping the Chicago River into Lake Michigan.

But the recent seizure of a truckload of live fish at the Detroit-Windsor border -- 4,000 pounds of prohibited bighead and grass carp apparently bound for consumer markets in Toronto -- demonstrates how complex the threat can be.

Feng Yang, 52, the owner of a fish import company, pleaded guilty this week in Windsor to violating the federal Fisheries Act, and was ordered to pay a $50,000 fine. He was stopped Nov. 4 after crossing the Ambassador Bridge into Canada.

The real kicker is here, though:

Yang paid a $40,000 fine in 2006 for a similar offense.

Apparently Mr. Yang is making a tidy enough profit on the bighead carp running biz to make the fines worth the risk. Either that or he lives for danger.

I tend to imagine smugglers are similar to mice. If you see one in your house, there are a hundred you don't see.