What makes Chennai a hub of illegal animal trade

CHENNAI: On February 2, customs officials at Chennai International Airport heard unusual squeaks coming from the luggage of a middle-aged man who had just arrived on a flight from Bangkok. When Kaja Moideen’s bag was opened, onlookers were stumped to find a tiny leopard cub in a basket. medium69339994A month after the seizure made global headlines and led Interpol to contact Indian authorities as part of their investigation into global illegal trade in wildlife, another passenger flying in from Bangkok was stopped on suspicion. Among the chocolates and gift items in his luggage was an African horned pit viper, coiled alongside some iguanas and tortoises. The snake, which is listed as near threatened by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), caused a major scare as India does not have anti-venom for it.

Apart from the poisonous reptile, what also alarmed authorities was that a 22-year-old student from Chennai had acted as a courier. According to T Uma, deputy director of Wildlife Crime Control Bureau (WCCB), an investigative agency tasked with curbing illegal wildlife trade in India, the smuggling syndicate is increasingly employing young students with the lure of free international tickets, hotel stay and a few extra bucks.

medium69340060Rajan Chaudhary, commissioner of Chennai customs under whose tenure the number of seizures have shot up in the past two years, said that couriers are willing to smuggle animals, which often include endangered and vulnerable species, for as low as Rs 10,000 per trip. “Chennai is well connected to Southeast Asian countries by regular flights that offer cheap airfare which makes it an attractive transit point for wildlife traffickers,” he added.

Chaudhary said officials from Thailand’s Consulate General’s office in Chennai had met him last week, admitting that they had taken note of regular attempts being made to smuggle wildlife species from that country to the southern Indian city and assured him that security would be beefed up at airports to prevent such incidents.

The star tortoise, for one, is often illegally traded on these routes. It is found in abundance in scrub jungles across the southern peninsula and a single such tortoise sells for Rs 25,000 in the illegal market. A 2015 study published in peer-reviewed journal Nature Conservation had cited previous research to highlight that Chennai was among the Indian cities from where passengers, acting as couriers, took these animals in direct flights to Thailand.

large69343756Abrar Ahmed, renowned wildlife expert and former senior programme officer at TRAFFIC (Trade Records Analysis of Flora and Fauna in Commerce-India), said that pangolin, star tortoise and sea horse are among the species most at risk. “The Indian pangolin (Manis crassicaudata) falls under the endangered category in the IUCN Red list of threatened species. It is now one of the most trafficked throughout the world. In 2018, TRAFFIC India had released a study which revealed that at least 5,772 pangolins were captured in India from 2009 to 2017 for illegal trade. Pangolins are hunted for their meat and their scales are used in traditional oriental medicine in Southeast Asian countries. The Patagonian seahorse (Hippocampus patagonicus), one of the three sea horse species which is trafficked for its use in medicine, falls under IUCN’s vulnerable category. The Indian star tortoise is now the most trafficked tortoise worldwide as it is in high demand as a pet.”Recent seizures in Chennai seem to suggest presence of a well-entrenched smuggling network in the city. In one of the largest hauls, 660 kg of sea horses, pipe fish, stingray, sea cucumbers, shark fins and pangolin scales were seized in Mannady, north Chennai, in February this year. The consignment was valued at Rs 7 crore in the international market. In October last year, 490 star tortoises seized at Kasimedu fishing harbour in Chennai were meant to be smuggled through Thai Air cargo. While the customs department in Chennai has been seizing star tortoises, sea cucumbers and pangolin scales being smuggled out of the country for years, officials say that there has also been a rise in exotic species being smuggled in. But where the exotic wildlife being smuggled into India is going is anybody’s guess.boxcontent 69343623RECENT SEIZURES AT CHENNAI AIRPORTMarch 25, 2019 African horn pit viper seized along with 2 rhinoceros iguanas, 3 rock iguanas, 22 Egyptian tortoises, 4 blue-tongued skinks and 3 green tree frogsMarch 13, 2019 18kg peacock feathers meant to be smuggled to Malaysia and SingaporeFebruary 2, 2019 Leopard cub seized from a man who arrived from BangkokJanuary 21, 2019 14kg shark fins worth Rs 8 lakh seized from a man travelling to SingaporeDecember 20, 2018 4,800 red-eared slider turtles seized from two passengers who arrived from BangkokOctober 12, 2018 2,300 red-eared slider turtles seized from a passenger who arrived from BangkokApril 6, 2018 65 star tortoises seized from a passenger bound for Bangkok It is likely that the exotic species have caught the fancy of affluent Indians who want to flaunt foreign breeds as pets, Chaudhary said. In the recent past, there has been an increase in seizures of red-eared slider turtle being brought in from Thailand and Malaysia. The turtle has gained popularity as a pet as it is supposed to bring luck and prosperity. In India, it is illegal to own a red-eared slider. T Uma said that wildlife smugglers cash in on the loopholes in law. Many species, such as the horned pit viper, are not covered under the Wildlife Protection Act, 1972, or the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) that regulates all commercial trade. In such cases, the courier is charged under the Customs Act and the Foreign Trade (Development and Regulation) Act for not having a no objection certificate (NOC) for their “goods”. The courier is then let off after paying a penalty. “We need to add more species under the Wildlife Act to ensure strict action,” Uma said. “Even though couriers are caught red-handed by customs, the link ends there. They usually have no knowledge of the handler or the customer.”When the 22-year-old Chennai student who acted a courier for the horned pit viper was questioned, he admitted he was supposed to give the bag to someone outside the airport but had no knowledge of who it might be. He was taken outside but no one turned up to receive the bag even after waiting for a considerable time. The man was let off. The snake he brought in was also packed off to Thailand.The leopard cub, though, now five months old, is thriving at a Chennai zoo, awaiting translocation to Thailand.(With inputs from Sandeep Rai in Meerut)