Langsat, which grows in yellow, grapelike clusters, is an illegal fruit that’s frequently smuggled into the Bay Area, along with mountain apples, June plums and mangos.
Nancybelle Gonzaga Villarroya/Getty ImagesOn Wednesday morning, a UPS driver discovered a dozen small boxes that didn’t look quite right.
That’s because they contained 600 pounds of June plums, says Michelle Thom, Santa Clara County’s deputy agricultural commissioner. June plums are among many clandestine fruits that are often smuggled into the Bay Area from Vietnam, India, Cambodia, China and Laos. These countries have dozens, sometimes hundreds of fruit fly species, a few of which are known to attack California’s most celebrated crops — and officials suspect they may be linked to the “unprecedented” number of quarantines taking place throughout Northern and Southern California.
According to Thom, these illegal exotic fruit shipments are nothing new — normally, they’re recovered from May to October. But lately, officials have come across these parcels of fruits at least once a week, and fruit smuggling is so rampant, it’s becoming a “losing battle” that could have significant ramifications for the state’s agricultural industry. According to a Sept. 6 news release from Santa Clara County, the 8mm oriental fruit fly threatened $19.3 billion in California crops in 2020.
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Earlier in August, the Stevenson Ranch area in the Santa Clarita Valley was placed under quarantine after officials detected the Tau fly, a voracious black-and-yellow insect native to Asia that attacks crops like avocados, cucumbers, tomatoes, citrus fruits and peppers. Just one month later, hundreds of miles away in Santa Clara County, representatives announced that oriental fruit flies were detected in the region, leading to another quarantine in Santa Clara and portions of Cupertino, Milpitas, San Jose and Sunnyvale that will likely last until June 2024.
To help prevent the spread, affected residents have been urged to not move homegrown produce from their properties while California Department of Food and Agriculture officials work to eradicate the flies.
The oriental fruit fly is known to attack hundreds of different fruits and vegetables, and though it’s unclear how and when the pests arrived, officials said they’re usually brought into the U.S. via uninspected produce.
At the time a person purchases the fruit and takes it home, it’ll look perfectly ordinary – but 10 days later, it’ll develop a suspicious-looking soft spot, and by that point, it’ll be crawling with maggots.
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“It’s definitely from smuggling in my opinion, there’s just too many flies,” Thom told SFGATE. “You need a large number of maggots to be able to get a population up and going, and so this is quite a number of pieces of fruit that are coming in.”
Typically, smugglers will air-freight illicit fruits from fake addresses and deliberately mislabel them as processed meat, clothing or paper products to avoid inspection, she said. Langsat, which grows in yellow, grapelike clusters, is a common offender, along with mountain apples, June plums and mangos. Once the boxes arrive at parcel facilities, officials will sometimes X-ray them and catch the shipments before they leave. If a package is purposely mislabeled among thousands of others that are coming in and out of the facility, however, chances are, it’ll slip through their fingers. From there, the fruit will usually be sold online, often to buyers who have no idea that it’s teeming with fly larvae.
By the time a person purchases the fruit and takes it home with them, it’ll still look perfectly ordinary — but 10 days later, it’ll develop a suspicious-looking soft spot, and by that point, it’ll be crawling with maggots. “It’s really gross,” said Thom. But it’s also lucrative — some of the exotic fruits sell up to $22 per pound, and dealers can expect to make a couple thousand dollars total.
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Even after officials warn the sender and the recipient that what they’re doing is illegal, it may be not everyone cooperates.
According to an Aug. 31 news release, two San Jose residents were accused of last year selling langsat that was infested with oriental fruit flies — the same type of fly that led to a produce quarantine in various South Bay cities this year — and local officials in May 2022 warned one of the defendants to stop selling the fruit. According to the release, she continued advertising the fruit online. The Santa Clara County District Attorney’s office has now handed the defendants felony charges, accusing them of violating the state’s Food and Agriculture Code.
“This is serious and reckless behavior. If they spread, these flies can destroy crops,” said District Attorney Jeff Rosen in the Aug. 31 release. “This County’s farms and everybody’s food prices are at stake.”
Once a single maggot is found in a piece of produce, Thom said, usually there will be many others. Already, the state has had to strip people’s properties of their fruit, she said, making it a “horrible” issue for the affected homeowners.
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“It’s unfortunate,” Thom said. “The real losers are the growers in these regions.”
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