Man Arrested in Possession of 12 Bear Gallbladders : Crime: He had planned to sell the contents of the package he picked up in Anaheim, authorities say.

A hearing aide technician was arrested as he picked up a package of 12 bear gallbladders, which he planned to sell in Asian communities for their professed medicinal and aphrodisiac qualities, authorities said Wednesday.

Jonathan Charles Schulte, 31, of Anaheim faces up to three years in prison and a $5,000 fine if he is found guilty of the felony.

Officials of the California Department of Fish and Game and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said they were notified last week by their counterparts in Wyoming that a package containing dried bear gallbladders was to be shipped to California. Originally, they said, the gallbladders had been sent from Saskatchewan, Canada, to Casper, Wyo., where possessing them is not a crime.

But Wyoming wildlife officials, noticing paperwork accompanying the package that identified its contents, alerted California officials of the shipment.

After staking out an Anaheim mail drop for three days, a team of Fish and Game wardens arrested Schulte on Friday in the parking lot of the DHL Worldwide Express facility where he had picked up the package and was about to place it in his car, officials said.

“He was extremely surprised,” said Lt. Angel Raton, the state warden who oversaw the arrest. “His eyes got big and he became pale. He was shocked that we were there; he figured he wasn’t going to get caught.”

Schulte, subsequently released on $10,000 bail, could not be reached for comment on Wednesday.

According to Raton, however, Schulte told investigators he had gotten the idea of importing the gallbladders from a television program on the subject and intended to sell them in Chinatown and Little Saigon.

In some Asian communities in California, investigators said, dried bear gallbladders sell for $200 to $1,000 apiece and in some Asian countries, they bring as much as $265 per gram.

Those who buy them generally grind them into tea, believing them to possess certain medicinal qualities and, in some cases, to act as aphrodisiacs, said Valerie A. Griswold, the Orange County deputy district attorney prosecuting the case.

“It’s fairly widespread throughout the state,” said Pat Moore, a spokesman for the state Fish and Game Department. “We believe that several hundred bears are killed in California for this purpose each year.”

“In some cases,” said Bob Schlicting, another spokesman, “it’s as lucrative as drug running.”

Investigators say they have no evidence that Schulte’s imported gallbladders came from California bears. Because of the difficulty of infiltrating the communities in which the bladders are sold, they said, only about six arrests are made for the crime each year.

In Schulte’s case, Raton said, “we were able to nip it in the bud. This was a first-time offense.”

“What we are trying to do is protect the bears in our state,” Griswold said. “This appears to be a fairly pervasive problem.”

Arraignment has been set for Aug. 15 at Central Municipal Court in Santa Ana.