Login With Google
DRI busts syndicate smuggling exotic macaws from Bangladesh
Why is it in News?
- Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) has busted a wildlife smuggling syndicate and seized consignment of exotic macaws which had been smuggled from Bangladesh to Kolkata
More on News
- Joint operation by Wildlife Crime Control Bureau (WCCB) and the Customs Department at the Kolkata airport.
- Birds identified as hacinth macaw, pesquet’s parrot, severe macaw and hahn’s macaw.
- seized macaws are protected under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES)
- hyacinth macaw being accorded the highest protection
- Legal provisions
(1) Illegally imported birds are confiscated under Section 111 of the Customs Act, CITES provisions and the Foreign Trade Policy
(2) Sections 48 and 49 of the Wildlife Protection Act prohibit trade or commerce in wild animals, animal articles or trophies.
(3) The accused can be sentenced to seven years of jail for the offence.
- illegal wildlife trade was ranked the fourth largest transnational organised crime globally, after the smuggling of narcotics, counterfeit goods and human trafficking.
- In recent years - DRI has seized a range of endangered species, including black-and-white ruffed lemur, hoolock gibbons, palm civets and Indian star tortoises; and exotic birds, including rosellas, nandin conures, peach-fronted conures, grass parakeets and maroon-tailed conures.