Russians smash animal products smuggling ring

For the last six months, the WWF and TRAFFIC have been providing assistance to the Russian navy, police and customs services in the country’s Far Eastern regions, which has resulted in Russian officials apprehending a ring of smugglers who trade in animal parts and tiger skins across the border into China.

Government officials operating in three simultaneous raids seized 900 black and brown bear paws, 60kg of bones from Tigers, over 500 saiga horns and four tiger skins, the estimated ‘street’ value of these items is $200,000.

Sergey Aramilev from the WWF said in an interview: “This shows the immense damage being done to endangered species and nature by organized wildlife poaching and smuggling,” and “This operation is also important in setting a precedent to fight the illegal trade from wildlife products. We cannot resuscitate killed animals, but we managed to stop a big contraband channel and enforce control on the Sino-Russian border.”

The smugglers came to the attention of Russian authorities last year, when government officials had suspicions about a truck full of ‘potatoes’ being shipped into China, upon inspection they discovered tiger skins, bear paws and other endangered animal parts.

This sparked an investigation into a Russian operator, known as Kolya, who was plying his trade in Ussuriisk in Primorsky Province, a well-known shipment point for poachers and smugglers.

By using phone taps, they were able to trace Kolya’s movements and set up a sting operation in which the Russian ‘bribed’ police and customs officers to turn off an electronic tracking system at a place called Khanka Lake, to allow him to take his shipment across the border into China.

Specially trained riot police then raided three locations and arrested. Most of the gang, the rest were picked at later; the group now face seven to twelve years in the gulag.
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