A Garland couple who ran an online operation selling smuggled Mexican veterinary drugs and unregistered pesticides across the country were sentenced yesterday, with Thao Duong ordered to serve three months in prison and forfeit more than $1.5 million while her husband, Lam Mai, received two years of probation. Duong also got two years of supervised release after admitting she partnered with suppliers to buy goods smuggled from Mexico and resold them nationwide without requiring a prescription, despite not being a veterinarian herself.
A Website Built on Rooster Fighting and Bee Colonies
Duong started selling animal care products online around 2011, according to Tampa Free Press, before launching a dedicated website in 2018 that took in roughly $2.4 million in smuggled items between 2018 and 2022. Court filings cited by the U.S. Department of Justice show Duong specifically targeted buyers involved in rooster fighting, distributing unapproved Mexican drugs including Cipio Vet, Baytril Max, and Caterrol without requiring veterinary prescriptions. By 2017, she had expanded sales to Taktic and Bovitraz, pesticides that are not registered with the Environmental Protection Agency, per the same DOJ filings.
Mai worked as the website's shipping manager, packing the chemicals and mailing them across the nation through the U.S. Postal Service and commercial couriers, the department said. The supply chain behind the operation ran through California: suppliers smuggled goods across the border from Mexico through the Calexico Port of Entry before storing them in border-area self-storage units, according to CBS News Texas. From there, the inventory was transferred to Texas for national distribution, the outlet reported.
Why Amitraz Is Banned at This Strength
Taktic and Bovitraz both contain amitraz, per the EPA, and while the agency permits lower concentrations such as the 3.33% found in approved Varroa mite control strips like Apivar, the 12.5% emulsifiable liquid forms sold by the couple are unregistered and prohibited from commercial sale in the United States. Amitraz can contaminate honey, beeswax, and honeycombs, and contaminated honey can cause human neurological and reproductive issues. In animals, amitraz exposure causes hypothermia, slow pulse rates, and central nervous system depression.
The illegal trade tapped into two very different customer bases: cockfighting operators seeking unapproved foreign steroids and antibiotics, and beekeepers chasing cheap, high-concentration amitraz to fight Varroa mite infestations despite the risk to their own hives. Research from Pennsylvania State University found that concentrated liquid Taktic is four times more toxic to adult honeybees than regulated, lower-concentration formulations at equivalent dosages, a danger Hoodline detailed in its earlier coverage of a San Diego Otay Mesa pesticide bust involving the same banned chemical.
Federal Officials React to the Sentencing
Jeffrey A. Hall said no one should profit from bringing illegal chemicals into the United States and poisoning American communities, adding that illegal Mexican pesticides and animal steroids are a dangerous combination. Adam Gustafson said the defendants traded human safety and environmental health for illicit profit. Jonathan Lamb said smuggling and distributing misbranded and unapproved veterinary drugs jeopardizes animal health, and Ryan R. Raybould said the defendants recklessly pumped dangerous foreign-sourced pesticides and drugs into the United States. Homeland Security Investigations and the U.S. Postal Inspection Service assisted the investigation, alongside the Environmental Protection Agency and Food and Drug Administration, which investigated the case. Prosecutors Lauren D. Steele, Vincent J. Mazzurco, and Madeleine Case handled the prosecution.
An Established Smuggling Pipeline
The Calexico-to-storage-locker pattern described in the case is not new. In June 2022, federal prosecutors in San Diego convicted Sofia Mancera Morales, the ringleader of a cross-border pesticide smuggling network that paid couriers between $40 and $150 per box to move concentrated Taktic and Bovitraz through California ports into Calexico storage lockers, according to the U.S. Department of Justice. And as recently as August, U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers at the Otay Mesa Port of Entry seized 24 liters of concealed 12.5% Taktic hidden under car floor mats, leading to felony smuggling charges against a San Diego driver, Hoodline previously reported.
Nationally, the scale of the problem is significant. During Fiscal Year 2025, the EPA stopped nearly 1.4 million pounds of illegal pesticides from entering the country across 469 refusal actions and secured criminal charges or sentences against 11 port-smuggling defendants. Under the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act and federal smuggling statutes, commercial distribution of unregistered pesticides can carry up to one year in prison per violation, while felony goods smuggling carries up to 20 years, according to the Department of Justice.
The three-month sentence handed to Duong stands in contrast to a prior case cited by federal authorities: in May 2018, a South Carolina couple was sentenced to a combined 11.5 years in prison for selling millions of dollars in unregistered pet pesticides and misbranded animal drugs online. In the Garland case, the emphasis instead fell on financial forfeiture, with Duong ordered to surrender more than $1.5 million tied to an operation that authorities say moved roughly $2.4 million in smuggled goods over four years.
