Thai police charge 22 with wildlife trafficking from tiger temple

Three monks among those charged as police remove more dead animals from tourist temple, including bear and leopard

Reuters in Kanchanaburi

Friday 3 June 201613.41 BSTLast modified on Friday 3 June 201613.47 BST

Thai police have charged 22 people, including three Buddhist monks, with wildlife trafficking and have removed more dead animals, including a bear and a leopard, from a Buddhist temple known as the tiger temple.

The temple in Kanchanaburi province, west of the capital, Bangkok, has been a major tourist attraction for more than two decades, with visitors paying 600 baht (£12) admission to pose for photographs with the tigers.

Wildlife activists have accused the temple of illegally breeding the tigers, while some visitors on online forums complained that the tigers appeared sedated. The temple denies the accusations.

Adisorn Nuchdamrong, from Thailand’s department of national parks, said 22 people had been charged with wildlife possession and trafficking, including 17 members of the temple’s foundation and three monks who were trying to flee with a truck full of tiger skins.

The seizure followed the grim discovery on Wednesday of the bodies of 40 tigers cubs inside a freezer. It remains unclear why the dead tiger cubs were being stored, although tiger bones and body parts are used in traditional Chinese medicine.

Read on … 

6 jailed in Tanzania for total of 122 years for wildlife trading.

Posted on December 22, 2015 by Kevin Heath

In less than a week the Tanzanian courts have made a bold and strong statement in order to protect the country’s wildlife. Six people involved in wildlife trafficking have been jailed for a total of 122 years.

In one court case, yesterday (Monday 22 December 2015), two ivory traders were sentenced to 21 years each for their part in trying to smuggle 4 elephant tusks out of the country.

Resident Magistrate Odira Amwol sentenced the two to the long jail term after the court had proved beyond reasonable doubt that they committed the offence.

The prosecution told the court that Justin Bruno, 50, a resident of Usevya Village and Philbert Leo, 35, a resident of Ikuba Village, were arrested on Thursday in possession of the haul. The magistrate ignored their pleas for lenient sentencing because they had families to look after.

Continued ...

Major wildlife trafficking ring foiled by Beijing Forest Police

Sixteen suspects have been arrested by Beijing Forest Police following an investigation into a major wildlife trafficking case code-named “May 21”, which led to the confiscation of wildlife products including 804.4 kg ivory, 11.3 kg rhino horn and 35 bear paws. 

The total value of the haul was in the region of RMB24 million (almost USD4 million) and 

Beijing Forest Police told a press conference the seizure was the biggest ever in terms of the scale of the smuggling operations behind it.

The criminal gang behind the trafficking were said to possess their own processing factory, warehouses and vehicles for transportation. The three month operation uncovered a trafficking ring that led from Japan through Hong Kong to mainland China, where the gang was said to operate across a network that ranged from Guangdong to Shandong and Beijing, using antique shops as cover for their operations and using online illegal trading and couriers for their distribution. 

Continued ...

Nearly 150 endangered wildlife seized at Indonesian airport

Two shipments of endangered Indonesian species, including a sedated young orangutan, have been intercepted at Soekarno-Hatta International Airport in Java, Indonesia.

Along with the orangutan, the first shipment, which was believed to be heading for Kuwait, contained three Javan gibbons, four siamangs, a slow loris, 97 Burmese pythons, and two palm cockatoos, stuffed into two suitcases. 

The second shipment contained native Indonesian birds including eight New Guinea babblers, seven sicklebills and nine other birds-of-paradise.

This shipment was intended for Paris, France, with the animals believed to be destined for the exotic pet trade.

Out of the 144 animals found in the two seizures, at least 13 had died, news reports said. The surviving animals are currently recuperating at the airport’s quarantine station, following which the Ministry of Forestry will return them to their natural habitats. 

Continued

Wildlife trafficking app launched at Sydney's Taronga Zoo

App aims to crowdsource intelligence about the illegal wildlife trade by having users report and photograph suspicious activity

Michael Safi

theguardian.com, Wednesday 9 April 2014 09.47 BST

Australian travellers in south-east Asia are being encouraged to report illegal wildlife trafficking using a new app.

Wildlife Witness, launched on Wednesday at Sydney’s Taronga Zoo, aims to crowdsource intelligence about the illegal wildlife trade by having users report and photograph suspicious activity and pin its general location on a public map.

More specific co-ordinates and a detailed report of the incident are passed onto the wildlife trade monitoring network, TRAFFIC, for further analysis. Credible reports will be referred to local law enforcement.

“The illegal wildlife trade is now estimated to be worth just under $20bn a year, so it’s up there with the illegal arms trade and the illegal drug trade,” Taronga Zoo director Cameron Kerr said.

Continued

US Government helps Asia in the fight against wildlife trafficking

March 2014: Law enforcement officers from Lao PDR and Thailand recently participated in a training course in order to improve their ability to fight against wildlife crime. There were twenty-six participants in total, including customs, police, and wildlife officers, as well as prosecutors.

Wildlife trafficking between Thailand and Lao PDR is renowned as a major route for the smuggling of wild animals and wildlife products. Via these countries, illegal animals and products are transported to China and Vietnam, and as far as Africa. Here, criminals take advantage of weak laws and understaffed law enforcement. The training course was designed to improve enforcement collaboration between Thailand and Lao PDR in an attempt to reduce global wildlife crime. The US State Department’s Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs co-funded the course along with the Blue Moon Fund. 

Bangkok-based counter-trafficking organisation Freeland implemented the training as part of Asia’s Regional Response to Endangered Trafficking (ARREST) program, which is run by the US Agency for International Development (USAID). ARREST is the US Government’s largest counter wildlife trafficking program that fights trafficking in Asia by reducing consumer demand, strengthening law enforcement, and enhancing regional cooperation. 

http://www.wildlifeextra.com/go/news/US-helps-Asia-014.html

USA offers reward for help smashing wildlife crime syndicate

November 2013: In an unprecedented move the US Government are offering a reward of up to $1 million for information that will help lead to the dismantling of one of Asia’s largest wildlife-trafficking syndicates. The State Department said it was targeting a Laos-based syndicate called the Xaysavang Network, which spans South Africa, Mozambique, Thailand, Malaysia, Vietnam and China, said the Secretary of State John Kerry in a statement. 

“The Xaysavang Network facilitates the killing of endangered elephants, rhinos, and other species for products such as ivory. 

Continued

US agencies clamp down on internet wildlife crime with dozens of arrests

Global wildlife trafficking busts expose illegal internet sales in U.S. & Southeast Asia

July 2013. Scores of wildlife traffickers face federal and state charges for selling protected species online last summer. The announcement follows a coordinated undercover law enforcement operation led by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and involving officers from 16 States, three Federal agencies, and three Asian countries.

Tiger skins and live birds being traded

Operation Wild Web resulted in 154 "buy/busts" in the United States: 30 involving Federal wildlife crimes and 124 for violations of State wildlife laws. It also exposed online trafficking of live birds and tiger and leopard pelts in Southeast Asia, where enforcement agency participation was coordinated by the Association of Southeast Asian Nations-Wildlife Enforcement Network (ASEAN-WEN)

"Our message is clear and simple: The internet is not an open marketplace for protected species," said Edward Grace, the Service's Deputy Assistant Director for Law Enforcement. "State partners and our ASEAN-WEN counterparts were essential to the success of this operation, and that cooperation remains critical to disrupting wildlife trafficking on the Web and elsewhere."

Continued

THE PRICE OF IVORY

In Trafficking of Wildlife, Out of Reach of the Law

HONG TONG, Laos — On an obscure and bumpy dirt road not far from the banks of the Mekong River, the compound of Vixay Keosavang stands out for its iron gates and cinder-block walls topped with barbed wire, a contrast to the rickety wooden stilt houses nearby in the shade of rubber trees.

Articles and multimedia in this series examine how the surge in poaching in Africa both feeds off and fuels instability on the continent, and plays out in other places like Asia.

A security guard who opened the gate recently said tigers, bears, lizards and many endangered anteaters called pangolins were inside. He called his boss and handed the cellphone to a reporter seeking permission to enter the compound.

Mr. Vixay (pronounced wee-sai), who spoke politely in a mixture of Thai and Laotian, denied that there were any animals inside or that he was in the wildlife business.

“There’s nothing there,” Mr. Vixay said of the compound, which is a five-mile drive to the nearest paved road. “Who told you about it?”

Mr. Vixay is notorious among investigators and government officials in several countries fighting to cut off syndicates operating a thriving trade in endangered animals that spans continents and has led to the slaughter of elephants in Africa, the illegal killings of rhinoceroses and the decimation of other species living in Asia’s jungles.

Mr. Vixay, says one investigator, is the “Pablo Escobar of wildlife trafficking.”

Continued:  http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/04/world/asia/notorious-figure-in-animal-smuggling-beyond-reach-in-laos.html?pagewanted=1&_r=4&hp&

Pythons, lorises and a monkey seized at Bangkok airport

11 pythons and a marmoset in luggage

July 2012. Lorises appear to be the preferred target of wildlife traffickers, turning up in markets around the South-East Asian region and in seizures-including the dozen found in a traveller's suitcase at Suvarnabhumi International Airport this morning. Authorities at Thailand's largest and busiest airport found the lorises stuffed in cloth bags inside the suitcase of a Kuwait bound traveller, who was also carrying 11 pythons and one marmoset in her luggage.

Alert officers at the luggage-scanning counter of the airport noticed something odd about the x-ray images of the woman's bag and found the animals when they opened it for examination.

Slow lorises are in high demand as pets
As a downside of their cute, wide-eyed appeal, slow lorises are in high demand as pets not only in Southeast Asia but globally. The trade is ongoing in spite of a worldwide ban on international commercial trade that has been in place since 2007.

Continued:  http://www.wildlifeextra.com/go/news/bangkok-pythons.html

Huge INTERPOL crackdown on wildlife trade in 14 countries

INTERPOL completes largest ever ivory operation while Chinese authorities crack down on wildlife trafficking

June 2012. INTERPOL has arrested more than 200 people, and seized almost two tonnes of contraband ivory, 20kg of rhino horn and military grade automatic weapons in an operation that spanned three months and 14 African countries.

Wide range of wildlife being trafficked
Operation Worthy saw INTERPOL and International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW) team up to target criminal organisations behind the illegal trafficking of ivory. Also seized were lion, leopard and cheetah pelts, crocodile and python skins, live tropical birds, turtles and other protected species destined to be illegally trafficked around the world.

Continued:  http://www.wildlifeextra.com/go/news/interpol-africa.html#cr

Wildlife trade – Smuggling big cats to the Middle East

Wildlife trade –A real threat to Africa’s wildlife October 2011: It is estimated that the illegal trade in wildlife is the second largest illegal market in the world, after drugs. Immense and increasingly sophisticated illegal trade in wildlife parts and live wildlife, coupled with antiquated enforcement methods, are decimating much of the world’s wildlife on a scale never before seen.

Wildlife Conservation Society conservationist Elizabeth Bennett. says that much of the trade is driven by wealthy East Asian markets that have a seemingly insatiable appetite for wildlife parts.

'We are rapidly losing big, spectacular animals'
According to her report, organised crime syndicates using sophisticated smuggling operations have penetrated even previously secure wildlife populations. Some of the elaborate methods include: hidden compartments in shipping containers; rapidly changing of smuggling routes; and the use of e-commerce whose locations are difficult to detect.

Live wildlife trade to the Middle East
Charity Born Free Ethiopia have set up a wildlife rescue centre to care for some of the animals being confiscated from traders and others in Ethiopia.

Stephen Brend, Project Director of Born Free Ethiopia, comments on wildlife trade issues: “The thinking behind establishing Ensessakotteh, our Wildlife Rescue, Conservation and Education Centre in Ethiopia, was not just to save animals from being kept, often illegally, in appalling conditions. If we are to be truly successful, in addition to saving those animals, we also need to stop wildlife trafficking full stop. Recent news suggests we have our work more than cut out for us."

Somalia a hub for wildlife trade
UN forces in Somalia recently confiscated two lion cubs that were already on a ship leaving the country. Born Free Foundation was prepared to help with their rescue and relocation, but the UN handled the situation and the lions were moved to South Africa. Unfortunately, Somalia is so lawless we have no real idea how many animals pass through there.

Demand for cheetah cubs
We do know, however, there is a huge demand for cheetah cubs in the Middle East. At least 20 have been smuggled from Ethiopia this year – and these are the ones we are aware of. There is no way the already-small wild population can withstand losses like that, so the situation is critical.

We are continuing to work with the Wildlife Conservation Authority in Ethiopia to try to increase the effectiveness of law enforcement both within the country and at border points. As the rescue of four little cheetahs in January shows, the system can work. We just need it to work more often.

Born Free Ethiopia is currently raising funds to rescue four more large, male lions and bring them to Ensessakotteh – find out more and help here      
http://www.wildlifeextra.com/go/news/cheetah-for-sale.html

Thai officials save thousands of endangered animals

Officials say they have seized nearly 3000 rare animals in one of the biggest wildlife trafficking busts in Thailand this year.

Among the animals are some protected by international conventions on endangered species.

The illegal wildlife trade is said to be rife in Thailand and generates billions of dollars worldwide.

Karishma Vaswani reports.

video here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-14921009