Bringing Beetles/insects overseas or across from an airplane

I've heard that insects need a permit to be brought over seas. Here's my prob. I took some beetles from the White Sands Monu. without a permit. If I get caught, will I go to jail? I am still a kid, so I can't really get a permit. But I am definitely not going to stop collecting live beetles no matter what, lol! All of the beetles/insects I bring back alive I take care that not any escape, though...

 
You live in South America right? I'm honestly not sure if the exporting laws here in the US are as strict as our importing laws, or if South America even has any importing laws. I doubt you'd go to jail, you'd just get fined if anything.

Even if it were legal to bring insects from the US to SA, collection from national monuments is illegal without a permit I believe. So I'd stop collecting in those places if I were you, and I would also advise against bringing anything from the US with you on the plane, just in case. Instead, you could try and focus on your native fauna, which is probably even more diverse than our US fauna anyway!

 
I had quite the same story as well.

I went to Taiwan to visit my relatives many years back, I was like 13 at the time. I wanted to take them back, but I got pissed that I couldn't bring them through customs because you cannot bring them through plane without a international import law mess(permit excluded, but you're a kid). I am from the US, but I don't know how it is in South America.

So I decided to bring some beetle supplies, as naive as I was, but poor me had no idea that beetle supplies and flake soil were also considered as "pest containing soil products", so I got them confiscated once I rightfully put that I had "soil products" in my luggage. I did what was lawful, but it kinda pissed me off and everything. Luckily, I didn't lie, so I didn't have anything happen except for confiscation. Basing off my experience, I can only say that you should just watch the beetles from a safe distance, and release them later, and just learn from your experiences and replicate them back home.

Basically put, just release them and let go. So you don't get on the import watch list
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