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World

Thailand biggest gateway to wildlife trafficking

Dunya News

Wildlife traffickers and officials work hand in hand in Thiland.

Squealing tiger cubs stuffed into carry-on bags. Luggage packed with hundreds of squirming tortoises, elephant tusks, even water dragons and American paddlefish. Officials at Thailands gateway airport proudly tick off the illegally trafficked wildlife they have seized over the past two years.But Thai and foreign law enforcement officers tell another story: Officials working-hand-in-hand with traffickers ensure that other shipments through Suvarnabhumi International Airport are whisked off before they even reach customs inspection.Its a murky mix. A 10-fold increase in wildlife law enforcement actions, including seizures, has been reported in the past six years in Southeast Asia. Yet, the trades Mr.Bigs, masterful in taking advantage of pervasive corruption, appear immune to arrest and continue to orchestrate the decimation of wildlife in Thailand, the region and beyond.Several kingpins, says wildlife activist Steven Galster, have recently been confronted by authorities, but in the end, good uniforms are running into, and often stopped by bad uniforms. Its like a bad Hollywood cop movie.Vietnam was singled out last month by the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) as the top destination country for the highly-prized rhino horn.Tens of thousands of birds, mostly parrots and cockatoos plucked from the wild, are being imported from the Solomon Islands into Singapore, often touted as one of Asias least corrupt nations, in violation of CITES, the international convention on wildlife trade.According to TRAFFIC, the international body monitoring wildlife trade, the imported birds are listed as captive-bred, even though its widely known that the Pacific Ocean islands have virtually no breeding facilities.Thai and foreign enforcement agents, who insist on anonymity since most work undercover, say they have accumulated unprecedented details of the gangs, which are increasingly linked to drug and human trafficking syndicates.According to the agents, Chinese buyers, informed of incoming shipments, fly to Bangkok, staying at hotels pinpointed by the agents around the Chatuchak Market, where endangered species are openly sold. There they seal deals with known middlemen and freight operators.The sources say that when they report such investigations seizures are either made for public relations, sink into a black hole or the information is leaked to the wrongdoers.Such a tip-off from someone at Bangkok airport customs allowed a trafficker to stop shipment of a live giraffe with powdered rhino horn believed to be implanted in its vagina.Officials interviewed at the airport, one of Asias busiest, acknowledge corruption exists, but downplay its extent and say measures are being taken to root it out.Chanvut says corruption is not the sole culprit, pointing out the multiple agencies which often dont cooperate or share information. Each with a role at Bangkoks airport, are the police, national parks department, customs, immigration, the military and CITES, which regulates international trade in endangered species.With poor communication between police and immigration, for example, a trader whose passport has been seized at the airport can obtain a forged one and slip across a land border a few days later.Those arrested frequently abscond by paying bribes or are fined and the case closed without further investigation. Controlled delivery.effectively penetrating networks by allowing illicit cargo to pass through to its destination is rare.The airport each year handles 45 million passengers and 3 million tons of cargo, only some 3 percent of which is X-rayed on arrival. The main customs warehouse is the size of 27 football fields.But seizures are made, she said, including boxes of tusks the remnants of some 50 felled elephants aboard a recent Kenya Airlines flight declared as handicrafts and addressed to a nonexistent company.