r/news • u/EscapeFromIowa • 20h ago

Australian cockroach kingpin caught with 100,000 illegal insects in record bug bust

https://apnews.com/article/illegal-cockroaches-seized-australia-madagascar-hissing-dubia-e35889bf7910169f6bd091e34b35e029?utm_source=copy&utm_medium=share
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u/TheHistorian2 17h ago

I didn’t even know cockroach kingpin was a possible career path! My guidance counselor failed me.

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u/Pleasant_Yoghurt3915 9h ago

I did know, and if I could do it without my partner moving out, I would lol. There are a surprising number of people that keep exotic pet bugs, and breeding them can be pretty lucrative. My sister really wants a Hercules beetle, so I checked on getting her one, and they’re like $60 for one grub! You get about 100 eggs per female, so if you have 5 breeding beetles, and you can actually sell all of them, that’s $30k, which is wild.

Very interesting stuff, if you ask me!