The Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) claims that three individuals from Bangkok, Thailand, were detained at the airport after receiving a tip that they were smuggling animals.
What’s it about? The detainees were arriving from Bangkok at Bengaluru’s Kempegowda International Airport on January 22. Officials from the Karnataka Forest Department (KFD) assisted in the retrieval of 18 non-indigenous creatures (four monkeys and 14 reptiles) from their luggage.
- The rare and endangered species apprehended include the Yellow and Green Anaconda, Yellow Headed Amazon Parrot, Nile Monitor, Red Foot Tortoise, Iguanas, Ball Pythons, Alligator Gar, Yaki Monkey, Veiled Chameleon, Racoon Dog, and White Headed Piones.
- The Bannerghatta Biological Park took the recovered animals into custody.
Farmhouse raid: After questioning the suspects, the DRI team raided a farmhouse within Bengaluru’s borders and discovered 139 animals from 48 different species, including 34 smuggled species from the CITES list.
- The DRI also found financial transactions to source non-indigenous species through smuggling and transactions on WhatsApp and other social media platforms.