Fake wildlife trade: how gangs are scamming security agencies with counterfeit animal skins
The informer would share the exact location for authorities to intercept the illegal consignment, he said, but for a price
In the last week of January, range forest officer with the Pune forest department, Manoj Barbole, received a call from an unknown number. The man on the other end introduced himself as an ‘informer’ and claimed to have a tipoff about a major wildlife trafficking operation. A group was allegedly smuggling tiger skin from Telangana into Maharashtra, he said, and the traffickers would cross state borders in the next few days. The informer would share the exact location for authorities to intercept the illegal consignment, he said, but for a price!
Barbole was immediately suspicious. He had encountered similar calls before. From ‘informers’ claiming to have inside knowledge of wildlife trafficking networks and willing to share it for a price. Barbole played along, asking for more details but the caller refused, insisting that ₹25,000 be transferred online to him first. Barbole refused but the caller persisted, pressuring him to make an immediate payment. Instead, Barbole and his team traced the call’s location to Kolhapur—far from the Telangana-Maharashtra border where the alleged smuggling was to take place. A few days later, the ‘informer’ called again, claiming that the traffickers had entered Maharashtra and were preparing for a handover of the consignment. This time, Barbole cut him short saying that no payments could be made in advance and that payments had to follow official protocol. The caller hung up, never to call again.
This is just one of several such instances reported by forest officials and security agencies across Maharashtra. Turns out organised gangs are behind this elaborate scam wherein ‘informers’ pretending to possess (real) intelligence on wildlife trafficking networks show willingness to trade the same for a price. In many cases, the scam goes even further—when authorities are fooled into conducting raids based on such tipoffs only to find that the so-called wildlife articles are, in fact, counterfeits.
Forest officials said that over the past few years, they have been battling not only real wildlife smuggling but also a parallel rise in the trafficking of counterfeit wildlife (articles).
These fakes—ranging from tiger- and leopard- skins to pangolin scales and ivory—are being used to deceive both law enforcement officials and black-market buyers who pay lakhs for rare animal products.
Basudev Tripathi, officer-in-charge of the western regional centre at the Zoological Survey of India (ZSI), regularly assists authorities in verifying the authenticity of confiscated wildlife articles. “We frequently receive cases where skins seized in operations are brought to us for verification. In many instances, we have found the skins of dogs, goats or cows to have been artificially treated and passed off as tiger- or leopard- skins. Morphological evidence clearly shows the differences,” he said.
The scam follows a clear pattern: One member of the gang poses as an informer, another member acts as the trafficker, while a third leads to the counterfeit wildlife articles. When officials raid the so-called traffickers, they seize the goods, believing them to be genuine. But detailed forensic analysis later reveals the fraud. The problem is, India’s wildlife protection laws do not include provisions to penalise the sale of fake wildlife products. Since no real wildlife crime has taken place, these gangs escape prosecution.
An assistant police inspector (API) in Panchgani requesting anonymity said that these scams are particularly rampant in regions with existing wildlife trafficking networks. Apparently, he himself fell prey to one such instance.
“Gangs operate in coastal Maharashtra and districts such as Kolhapur, Satara and Pune, where there has been trade in animal products historically. They know how enforcement agencies work, and they exploit the loopholes. Their targets include both law enforcement officers and private buyers,” he said.
In many cases, criminals use low-cost animal skins—often from domestic dogs, goats or cows—and dye them in artificial colours to resemble tiger- or leopard- skins. Ivory fakes are made using polished bones or resin, while pangolin scales are sometimes fabricated from hardened fish scales. These counterfeit articles are then sold to unsuspecting buyers at exorbitant rates, or used as bait in scams targeting security agencies.
Deepak Pawar, assistant conservator of forests (ACF), Pune forest department, said that the problem has escalated in the last five years. “We have conducted multiple seizures of what were initially believed to be genuine wildlife articles. However, forensic analysis revealed that many were counterfeit. Investigations so far have linked these operations to groups in Madhya Pradesh and Jharkhand. While we haven’t found direct international involvement, we cannot rule out the possibility of an organised crime network,” he said.
The rise in trade of counterfeit wildlife articles is not just an economic fraud—it is also complicating real enforcement efforts against (real) wildlife trafficking. Every false lead drains resources, diverts manpower, and erodes trust between informers and authorities. “We receive hundreds of tipoffs every year, and these scams make it difficult to distinguish genuine intelligence from fake intelligence. This can lead to hesitation in acting on real cases, allowing actual traffickers to slip through the cracks,” said an official from the Wildlife Crime Control Bureau (WCCB).
As if this wasn’t enough, genuine wildlife traffickers are now using counterfeit articles to test law enforcement responses. In some instances, criminals have deliberately set up fake wildlife trafficking operations to observe how security agencies react—before launching the real wildlife smuggling operations.
One of the biggest challenges in tackling these scams is the lack of legal provisions against counterfeit wildlife articles. While India’s Wildlife Protection Act 1972 has stringent penalties for poaching and illegal trade in genuine wildlife products, there is no clear law to prosecute those selling or possessing fake ivory or animal skins.
A senior forest department official said, “Right now, even if we catch a person red-handed with a counterfeit wildlife article, there is no legal ground to charge them with a wildlife crime. At the most, they can be booked under fraud-related sections of the Indian Penal Code (IPC), which are often insufficient.”
Experts believe that legal amendments are necessary to curb this rising menace. “The law needs to evolve to include provisions that penalise the production and sale of counterfeit wildlife articles. This will not only protect law enforcement agencies from scams but also prevent the black market from flourishing,” said a legal expert who specialises in environmental law.
