Chinese Mitten Crab is one of a favorite dish of Chinese people, and its mature season is September to December. Generally, a crab can be sold for tens to few hundred yuan. In the United States, a live Chinese Mitten Crab values around 50 dollars, which attracts many local traders to smuggle crabs from China into the United States.

Visitors taste local crabs in Nanton, Jiangsu Province on November 2, 2018. Jiangsu Province is famous for its delicious Yangcheng Lake Chinese Mitten Crabs. [Photo: VCG]

As an agricultural products specialist from U.S. Customs and Border Protection says, October to December is the peak season of smuggling Chinese Mitten Crabs into the US. Last year, Kennedy International Airport in New York hunted down and seized five of six batches of the crabs from China, each batch containing 50 to 500 crabs. Since September, Customs has seized several Chinese passengers smuggling crabs and more than 400 kilograms were ferreted out at a time. At the end of October, a Chinese man was fined $10,000 for 108 crabs found in his luggage. According to him, these crabs were originally intended to be sold in family-run stores.

135 Chinese Mitten Crabs are seized in Indiana by U.S. Customs in September. [Photo: thepaper.cn]

Compared to the crab sold and eaten in restaurants, U.S. Customs is more worried about the release of Chinese Mitten Crab into the nature. The crab can make 30 holes in 1 square meter of land. It can not only grab food from local crabs such as blue crabs, but also eat fishermen's catches. In addition, crabs can destroy river banks and block hydroelectric power stations.

Wanted order of Chinese Mitten Crab in the U.S. [Photo: mittencrab.nisbase.org]

The current regulation for Chinese Mitten Crab, live or dead, frozen or cooked, states that it can't be brought into the United States from New York, even if it is declared ahead. Only a few states allow the import of frozen crabs, which demands a permit applied in advance.

Besides Chinese Mitten Crab, a series of Chinese favorite foods are on the list of contraband, such as duck tongue, chicken feet, edible bird's nest and tangerine peel. Once seized by Customs, they may end up in high temperature incinerators.