Indian customs officials have arrested a plane passenger after discovering two critically endangered gibbons in a checked bag, the latest animals seized by smugglers at Mumbai airport.
One of the tiny animals from Indonesia was dead, the other in one Video shared by Indian CustomsHe was seen in the arms of an officer, cheering softly before covering his face with his arm.
Customs said the passenger, who was traveling from Malaysia via Thailand, received the rare animals from a wildlife trafficking “syndicate” for delivery to India. Officers acting on “concrete intelligence” arrested the passenger in Mumbai on Thursday.
“A subsequent search of their checked baggage, a trolley, resulted in the discovery and seizure of two silver gibbons (Hylobates moloch), one found alive and one found dead, hidden in a basket,” the customs agency said.
Customs from Mumbai
The department also said that nearly 8 kilograms of hydroponic grass were found hidden in the passenger’s luggage.
Wildlife trade monitor TRAFFIC, which combats the smuggling of wild animals and plants, warned in June of a “very worrying” trend in the exotic pet trade.
More than 7,000 dead and live animals have been seized on the Thailand-India flight route in the last 3.5 years, it said.
The home of the small silver gibbon in the wild is the rainforests of Java in Indonesia.
According to the International Union for Conservation of Nature, they are threatened by forest loss, hunting and animal trafficking.
It is estimated that there are around 2,500 to 4,000 primates left.
The seizure follows several recent smuggling rats at the same airport.
Just a week earlier, customs officials said they had arrested another smuggler with snakes, turtles and a raccoon.
In June, Mumbai Customs intercepted two passengers arriving from Thailand Dozens of poisonous vipers and more than 100 other creatures, including lizards, sunbirds and tree-climbing possums, also traveling from Thailand.
In February, customs officials at Mumbai airport stopped a smuggler with five siamang gibbons, a monkey native to the forests of Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand.
Exotic primates have also recently been smuggled along the U.S.-Mexico border. Jim Stinebaugh, a special agent with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, said CBS News that nearly 90 baby spider monkeys have been confiscated at the Texas-Mexico border in the last 18 months – and this is believed to be just a fraction of the number of spider monkeys illegally imported into the United States.
