NEW DELHI, March 26 — Airport officials in south India foiled an attempt to smuggle six endangered monkeys from Malaysia into India and sent the seized wildlife back to Kuala Lumpur.
Four siamang gibbon monkeys and two northern pig-tailed macaques were confiscated from an Indian passenger flying from Kuala Lumpur to Bengaluru’s Kempegowda International Airport on Sunday night.
“The monkeys have been flown back to Malaysia on Monday. We have observed a rising trend in the smuggling of exotic species into Bengaluru over the past year,” the New Indian Express newspaper quoted an Indian customs official as saying in a report yesterday.
“Based on profiling, we narrowed down on this specific individual, who is a native of Tamil Nadu. The six monkeys were stuffed between chocolates and clothes inside a single trolley suitcase, which he had checked in at the time of boarding,” the official said.
There have been many recent cases of exotic wildlife smuggling from Southeast Asia into India.
Two people travelling from Kuala Lumpur were arrested at Bengaluru in December as they tried to smuggle two agile gibbons by stuffing them into a trolley bag.
In November last year, customs officials at Bengaluru airport seized 40 rare and endangered animals -including different species of tortoises, beaded lizards, shingleback skinks, juvenile rhinoceros iguanas, and agile gibbons – being smuggled into India from Malaysia. — Bernama
