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| SAPU Recovers 56 Assortment Of Wildlife At Sarawak-Kalimantan Border | |
| KUCHING, May 23 (Bernama) -- The
Forestry Department's Security and Asset Protection Unit (SAPU) recovered
56 assortment of wildlife in a raid at a secluded place along the
Sarawak-Kalimantan border near Lubok Antu Monday.
With the finding, SAPU believed they have smashed an international wildlife smuggling ring. The mastermind, however, managed to elude arrest, SAPU General Manager Sani Bakar said in a statement. Saying that the mastermind and his henchmen were elusive and that different strategies had to be applied to nab them, he said, SAPU managed to identify their exact location last night and raided the place today, seizing various animals. He said the animals were protected species under the Wildlife Protection Ordinance 1998 and listed in Appendix I, II and III of the Convention on International Trade of Endangered Species, a multilateral environmental agreement of which Malaysia is one of the signatories. Sani said SAPU officers also recovered skeletal remains of a small primate suspected to be a baby Orang Utan. "A foreigner who was at the site with a local is being investigated," he said. He said SAPU had been actively investigating activities of the syndicate since early this year. The syndicate's operations were an organised crime from both sides of the border, he said. Based on initial investigations, he said, the recovered wildlife were suspected to have been smuggled in from across the border. Specimens seized include spotted dove, lesser adjutant stock, white bellied fish eagle, laphura bulweri, crested firebacks and cervus unicolour. "There was also a large cage and an area for primates, especially Orang Utans, but it was empty," he added. |
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