Two white porcupines, two armadillos, 35 turtles, 50 lizards and 20 snakes were packed in the luggage, all of them alive. Two Indian women have been arrested at Bangkok airport with the animals.

The two women were trying to smuggle 109 live animals, which were detected by the X-ray machine at Bangkok's Suvarnabhumi airport. The arrested women are Nitya Raja and Zakia Sultana Ibrahim. Charges have been filed against them under the Wildlife Conservation and Protection Act 2019, the Animal Epidemics Act 2015 and the Excise Act 2017.

The airport authorities did not say what the women would have done with the animals in India or where the animals were taken after they were recovered. But attempts to smuggle animals from Bangkok to India have been made before. In 2019, a man who flew from Bangkok to Chennai airport was caught with a one-month-old leopard cub in his bag.

Last month, two attempts to smuggle animals were also foiled at Chennai airport. Between 2011 and 2020, 70,000 animals were recovered at 18 airports in India, many of them endangered.

Citing NDTV.

Source: Jagonews24. First published in Bengali on The Agro News.