Illegal wildlife trade racket busted; 19 held

A major crackdown by the Maharashtra forest department led to the arrest of 19 people involved in illegal wildlife trade spread across the districts of Nashik, Thane,

A major crackdown by the Maharashtra forest department led to the arrest of 19 people involved in illegal wildlife trade spread across the districts of Nashik, Thane, Pune, and Ahmednagar.

HT Image

The Wildlife Crime Control Bureau (WCCB) said this was the largest crackdown witnessed in the state over the past 10 years. Wildlife articles included two red sand boas (Eryx johnii), protected under schedule IV of the Wildlife Protection Act (WPA), 1972, and one Indian soft-shell turtle, protected under schedule I of WPA.

Between June 1 and 11, the forest department arrested two police officers, Vishwas Chavankhe, an assistant police inspector from Rabale police station in Navi Mumbai, Thane district, and Deepak Dhabekar, a constable from Chatushringi police station in Pune. An information technology (IT) entrepreneur from Pune and a real estate agent also from Belapur were also arrested for playing the role of middlemen, said forest officials.

Around 20 forest officials, mainly from the Nashik (East) forest department, carried out the operation starting from Yeola, a town in Nashik, on June 1, where local Somnath Pawar was arrested while trying to sell a live red sand boa. The remaining wildlife articles were seized on June 7 when a trap was laid for one of the accused Nikhil Gaikwad in Ahmednagar district and the soft-shell turtle was recovered. Six others were arrested on June 11 in Sinnar, Nashik, while trying to sell the second red sand boa. Two four-wheelers and one bike were seized from the accused during the operation.

“Rather than just stopping at the first seizure and arrest, we investigated the entire route of persons involved in this racket, right from the source to middlemen and finally the end seller. The entire operation, followed by court proceedings, took around two weeks,” said Tushar Chavan, deputy conservator of forest (Nashik East). “We began by tapping the source in Nashik district where the first person was arrested. After getting forest custody, a step-by-step process helped us identify other culprits within the district,” he said.

The forest department sought assistance from WCCB and the Maharashtra cyber cell. “After making the first six to seven arrests, we tracked down the middlemen using call record data, geo-location of the persons, and continuous interrogation of the arrested accused,” said Chavan adding, “The middlemen across major cities were the ones calling the shots for the trade, and they were the most difficult to track down. Remaining persons were either carriers or sellers. They were easily nabbed by setting up traps where forest officials acted as interested buyers or dummy traders near railways stations, bus stands, and markets.”

All 19 people were granted magistrate custody till June 22 by a district court in Nashik. “We have not assigned any value for the wildlife articles seized because it is unethical to do so, and further enhances their trade. Any reports suggesting any value are false,” said Chavan.

The list of accused and suspected persons in the investigation was submitted to WCCB.

M Maranko, regional deputy director WCCB (West), said, “A string of these many arrests followed by detailed detection by the forest department has not been witnessed over the past decade. In most cases, we observe that the basic seizure and arrests are made, and the case ends. But the state forest department was able to uncover all loopholes in this one.”

Maranko added that WCCB will now be taking over the matter to check whether the arrested accused were part of a pan-India nexus.