Indian customs officers in Mumbai said they had stopped the passenger of the plane arrived from Thailand, with a distorted cargo of live snakes – the third such suck this month.
“Customs officers … thwarted another attempt to smuggle wildlife, 16 live snakes … confiscated from a passenger returned from Thailand,” ” The customs officers said. They said it happened at Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj in India.
The passenger who arrived on Sunday was arrested, the customs agency said in a statement, and “further investigation is underway”.
Live snakes included reptiles that are often sold in pets, and were largely unknown, or with poison too weak to affect people. Agency has published Images in social media of the snakes that were discovered.
They included garters, snakes of coastal, tied with the California snake, a snake of rhino rats and Kenyan sandblasted Boa, among others.
Customs officers at the Mumbai airport are more used to seizing smuggling gold, cash or cannabis – but the wildlife capture has recently been observed in gradual growth.
In early June, customs officers stopped smuggling passengers Dozens of poisonous viperHe also comes from Thailand. A few days officers stopped another traveler Wearing 100 creatures Including lizards, sunny birds and trees covered.
In February, customs officials at Mumbai Airport also stopped a smuggler Five Siamang GibbonsA small monkey that originally from the forests of Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand. Those small creatures threatened by the International Union for Conservation of Nature were “brilliantly hidden” in a plastic box placed in a passenger trolley bag, customs officers said.
In November, the authorities found a passenger who was transported live a load of 12 turtles.
“Very disturbing” trend
Monitoring the wildlife trading, which fights wildlife smuggling and plants, has warned of a “very disturbing” tendency of trading caused by exotic pets.
Over the last 3.5 years, more than 7,000 animals and lives have been confiscated over the last 3.5 years.
The traffic said his analysis showed that while in most cases, India had happened that the animals that control from Thailand had more than 80% of the interceptions.
“Almost weekly discoveries and variety of wildlife on the way to India are very disturbing,” said the director of “Southeast Asia” by Krishnia.
Many of the enthusiasm were alive that “shows that the noise for exotic pets manages trade,” she added.