The $11,000 Ornamental Goldfish That Nearly Cost Me My License

I remember the exact moment I knew I was in real trouble. It was 2:47 PM on a Thursday in late October, and I was standing in a fluorescent-lit cargo office at JFK, watching a USDA inspector flip through a stack of paperwork that had my name all over it. The air conditioning was blowing too hard, someone’s lunch was microwaving in the next room, and I could hear the low hum of a forklift moving pallets somewhere behind the wall. The inspector didn’t look angry. That would have been easier. She just looked tired, like she’d seen this exact thing a hundred times before.

“Mr. Chen,” she said, not quite looking up from the papers. “You’ve declared these as ornamental goldfish.”

I nodded, already feeling the heat in my neck.

“But your supplier’s packing slip lists them as Carassius auratus, variety ‘Ryukin,’ which falls under Appendix II of CITES for certain wild-collected populations out of East Asia.” She paused and finally looked at me. “Did you check the country of origin against the current CITES annotation?”

I had not.

The Phone Call From Ramon

Three weeks before that moment, I’d gotten a call from a wholesaler I’d worked with maybe twice before, a guy named Ramon who runs a small operation out of a warehouse near the Miami airport. Ramon has a way of making things sound simpler than they are. “Listen,” he said, his voice crackling over what sounded like a bad connection. “I’ve got a line on some Ryukins from a breeder in Indonesia. Really nice fish. Good color, good shape. The guy wants to move them fast because he’s consolidating his stock. You want in?”

I should have asked more questions. I should have asked about the paperwork, the import permits, the CITES requirements. But the price was good — $3.50 per fish instead of the usual $8 to $12 from my regular Japanese supplier — and I’d been burned on a deal the month before where I’d lost money on a shipment of angelfish because of some customs delay. I was trying to make up the difference. So I said yes.

“Send me the docs,” I said. “I’ll set up the import.”

Ramon emailed me a packing list, a health certificate from the Indonesian exporter, and what looked like a CITES permit. I glanced at it, saw the words “ornamental goldfish” and “captive bred” somewhere in the small print, and filed it away.

The CITES Fine Print Nobody Mentions

Here’s the thing about CITES — the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora — that nobody tells you when you’re starting out in the fish import business. Everyone talks about the big stuff: the illegal parrot shipments, the seized ivory, the snake skins. Nobody talks about goldfish. But CITES doesn’t care if the animal is cute or common or sold at a pet store for four dollars. CITES cares about the species, the population, the country of origin, and whether the export permit is valid against the current annotation.

The Ryukin goldfish — the variety I was importing — isn’t endangered. You can buy them at Petsmart. But Carassius auratus has a complicated CITES history. In 2019, certain wild populations from parts of East Asia were added to Appendix II because of overcollection for the ornamental trade. The annotation specifically said “wild-collected specimens from [certain countries] are subject to Article IV export quotas.” Indonesia wasn’t on the list — but my supplier’s paperwork showed the fish had been transshipped through a consolidator in Singapore, and Singapore’s CITES authority had a different set of rules for transshipped goods.

I didn’t know any of this at 2:47 PM. I learned it over the next four hours while I sat in a plastic chair in that cargo office, watching the inspector’s phone buzz with messages she didn’t answer, while she methodically went through my file with a yellow highlighter.

“You’ve got a CITES permit here,” she said, holding up a document that looked official enough. “But it’s for wild-collected specimens. Your packing slip says these are captive bred. Which is it?”

I opened my mouth. Closed it.

“I don’t know,” I said.

The Hold — Eighteen Days at $150 Per Day

Agent Marlene Okonkwo put my file in a plastic sleeve and told me the fish would be held pending a full CITES audit. “That could take anywhere from two weeks to two months,” she said, not unkindly. “You’ll need to provide evidence of legal acquisition, proof of captive breeding, or a valid CITES export permit from the country of origin. Your supplier’s documents don’t match.”

Two weeks to two months. The fish were in three boxes, each about the size of a small suitcase, packed in oxygenated bags with heat packs because October in New York is already cold. I’d paid $3,500 for the fish, $1,200 for the freight, $600 for the health certificate and CITES permit application fees, and another $400 for the customs broker. Plus the storage fees at the cargo facility — $75 per day per pallet. The fish were being held at a USDA-approved facility that charged $150 a day for “maintenance.”

I called Ramon. He didn’t pick up. I texted him. He replied four hours later: “Check with the exporter. They said they had it handled.”

The exporter was a company called Indo-Aqua Exports, based out of Jakarta. I’d never worked with them directly. Ramon had brokered the deal. I sent them an email at 6 PM New York time, which was 5 AM Jakarta time. I didn’t get a reply for three days.

When I did, it was a one-line email from someone named Budi: “Please provide your CITES import permit for our records.”

I stared at that email for a long time. They wanted my import permit. But I’d paid them to provide the export permit. They hadn’t. The document I’d received wasn’t an export permit from Indonesia. It was a re-export certificate from a Singapore trader who’d bought the fish from someone else and then sold them to Ramon. The fish had moved through three different countries, and nobody had bothered to get the proper paperwork at any step along the way.

A Phone Call From a 202 Area Code

Ten days into the hold, I was sitting in my apartment in Queens — a one-bedroom with a 55-gallon tank in the living room that I used for quarantining new arrivals — and I was starting to calculate what I’d lose if the fish died. The maintenance fees were already at $1,500. The fish might not survive another two weeks in bags, even with the heat packs. I’d be out the full cost, plus any penalties from USDA for the paperwork violation.

Then my phone rang. It was a number I didn’t recognize, with a 202 area code. Washington DC.

“Is this Mr. Chen?” The voice was a woman’s, older, with a slight Southern accent.

“This is he.” I was expecting bad news.

“This is Diane from the USFWS Office of Law Enforcement. I’ve been reviewing your case file.” She paused, and I heard her rustling papers. “Agent Okonkwo flagged your shipment for the CITES annotation issue. She did the right thing. But I took a closer look at the documentation, and I think there might be a path forward.”

I almost dropped the phone. “What do you mean?”

“The fish are listed as captive bred on your health certificate. If you can provide a sworn affidavit from the original breeder — not the re-exporter in Singapore, the actual breeder in Indonesia — confirming that these fish were born and raised in a controlled environment, and provide photos of the facility, we can consider this a documentation error rather than a willful violation. You’ll still have to pay the storage fees, and there’s a $500 administrative penalty for the misdeclaration, but your license won’t be affected.”

“How do I get that affidavit?” I asked.

“You’ll need to contact the breeder directly. Do you have their contact information?”

I didn’t. Ramon had all that. And Ramon wasn’t returning my calls.

The Affidavit From Bogor

I finally got through to Ramon on day twelve. He was evasive at first, then apologetic, then borderline hostile. “Look, man,” he said. “I didn’t know the paperwork was gonna be a problem. The guy in Singapore said it was all good. You want to talk to him, here’s his number.” He gave me a number with a +65 country code. I called it.

The Singapore trader — a man named Vincent who spoke fast and precise English — was surprisingly helpful. “Yes, yes, I know about your situation,” he said. “This happens sometimes. The Indonesian exporter, they don’t always understand the CITES rules for transshipment. They think because the fish are captive bred, they don’t need the paperwork. But the rules are different for different countries.”

He gave me the contact information for the actual breeder — a facility called Budi Fish Farm, located outside of Bogor, about an hour south of Jakarta. I sent them an email, then a WhatsApp message, then another email. Nothing for two days.

On day fourteen, I got a reply from a woman named Sari, who said she was the farm manager. Yes, they had bred the fish. Yes, they could provide photographs. But they didn’t have a standard affidavit form. Could I send them one?

I spent the next three days drafting an affidavit, getting it notarized at a UPS Store in Astoria, scanning it and emailing it to Sari, who then had to get it signed by the farm owner and notarized in Indonesia. The time zone difference meant I was emailing at 2 AM and getting replies at 5 AM. I wasn’t sleeping well.

On day eighteen, I received a scanned PDF of the signed affidavit, along with three photographs showing rows of concrete tanks filled with Ryukin goldfish — orange, red, calico, all swimming in clear water under a corrugated metal roof. The photos were dated, timestamped, and showed the scale of the operation. It was clearly a legitimate captive breeding facility.

I emailed everything to Diane at USFWS at 11 PM on a Sunday night. She replied at 7 AM Monday: “This looks sufficient. I’ll process the release today.”

Picking Up the Boxes

I drove back to JFK on Tuesday morning. The weather had turned — gray sky, cold drizzle, the kind of day that makes you feel like you’ve been wearing wet socks for a week. I parked in the cargo lot, walked through the security gate, and found Agent Okonkwo at her desk. She had my file out, a different stack of papers now, and she handed me a release form.

“Sign here,” she said. I signed. “Your fish are in holding bay C. You’ve got thirty minutes to check them and load them into your vehicle.”

The holding bay was a refrigerated warehouse, about forty degrees, and three boxes sat on a metal pallet in the corner. I opened the first one. The bag was still inflated, the water clear, and inside were about forty Ryukins, each about two inches long, swimming in slow circles. They were alive. All of them.

I checked the other two boxes. Same thing — all alive, all healthy, all swimming. Eighteen days in bags, three heat packs, zero casualties. I loaded them into the back of my Honda CR-V, which I’d lined with a tarp and some old towels, and drove them back to my quarantine tank in Queens. The whole way, I kept glancing in the rearview mirror, half-expecting to see flashing lights.

The Real Cost of $10,870

When I finally sat down and added it all up, the total came to $10,870. The breakdown:

Fish: $3,500
Freight: $1,200
Health certificate and CITES permit application: $600
Customs broker: $400
Storage at USDA facility: $2,700 (18 days at $150/day)
Administrative penalty: $500
Notary fees: $45
Gas and parking: $120
Phone calls to Indonesia and Singapore: $85
Lost income from other sales I couldn’t process because I was dealing with this: about $2,000

I sold the Ryukins for $12 each to a local pet store chain. Gross revenue: $4,800. Net loss on the shipment: about $6,000. It took me three months of other shipments to climb back to where I’d been before that phone call from Ramon.

Four Changes I Still Use

I still import fish. I still work with Ramon occasionally, though I double-check every document he sends me.

First, I keep a spreadsheet of all CITES-listed species I might encounter, with current annotations, country-specific rules, and the phone numbers for the USFWS Office of Law Enforcement. Diane’s number is in there, and I’ve called her twice since then to ask questions before I file paperwork. She doesn’t mind. She said she’d rather get a call before the shipment arrives than have to deal with another hold.

Second, I never trust a re-export certificate. If the fish pass through more than one country before they reach me, I ask for the original export permit from the country of origin. If the supplier can’t provide it, I don’t buy.

Third, I built a relationship with a customs broker who specializes in fish imports — a guy named Tony who works out of a cramped office near the Newark airport. Tony knows the rules for ornamental fish better than I do. He charges $150 per shipment, which sounds expensive until you consider that it saved me from repeating the $11,000 mistake.

Fourth, I learned that the best time to ask questions is before you sign anything. That sounds obvious, but when you’re trying to get a deal done and the wholesaler is telling you the paperwork is fine and the price is good, it’s easy to convince yourself that everything is under control. It’s not. The paperwork is never under control until you’ve verified every line yourself.

I still have the photos from Budi Fish Farm — the concrete tanks, the clear water, the orange and red fish swimming in circles. I kept them in my file, along with the affidavit and the release form and the penalty notice. Sometimes I look at them when I’m filling out an import application, just to remind myself what happens when you trust someone else’s paperwork without checking it yourself.

📷 Photos: Zhen Yao (Unsplash)

The $11,000 Ornamental Goldfish That Nearly Cost Me My License