Tuesday 24 November 2015

INDIA: Five More Held For Poaching Pangolins

Five more people from the district were arrested by the forest department officials from Bhavanisagar in Erode district on Saturday evening for smuggling pangolins scales from Coimbatore and Erode districts.

A team of forest officials are camped at Chennai to nab Ravikumar, who is having a close link with international smugglers.

The arrested were identified as Subramani, 53, of Thudiyalur, Murugan, 37 of Velliankadu, Chandrasekar, 32 of Narasipuram, Vellingiri, 44 of Narasipuram and Sakkarapani, 34 of Nallampathi. They were working as daily wage labourers. Forest officials claimed they used to collect the pangolin scales from villagers in districts.

The collected scales would be handed over to main smugglers- Ezhumalai and Rangam, from Karamadai and Ponnaian in Thudiyalur respectively, who will in turn send the scales to Ravikumar of Chennai. They told the forest officials that they had collected 6kg of pangolins scales from various villages in and around Coimbatore and Sathyamangalam area. Ravikumar gave Rs 10,000 for a kilo.

No comments: