Aloo for musk deer, kola for elephants, poachers use code words to deal in protected animals
Illegal wildlife smugglers use code words and other techniques to mask their activities, making it virtually impossible for websites to be certain that its ads never facilitate the illegal wildlife trade.
In Short
- Illegal wildlife trading is conducted through popular shopping and free ad-posting sites.
- On June 15 a 19-year-old
- who was sold a protected species of turtle
- was arrested.
- Over 200 websites are being rampantly used by people to trade in animal parts.
Despite strong objection on sale of animals and their parts on various e-commerce and free classified websites, poachers and traffickers are using code words to deal in protected animals.
The challenge before security agencies now is to track the trade route, which is widespread in the online world.
CAUGHT IN THE WEB
A senior central government official said the online business of animal parts is conducted through popular shopping and free ad-posting sites, websites of various companies and even via social networking sites.
The rampant use of web space for selling protected species is evident as on June 15 authorities in Uttarakhand arrested a 19-year-old who was sold a protected species of turtle on the e-commerce website OLX.com.
Youth uploaded an advertisement for selling a bunch of Indian Roof turtles on OLX. The demand for such animals is quite high in Delhi, where the teen was trying to sell it.
"A strict vigil is being kept on various websites, which are being used to sell such animals. However, it is impossible to keep a complete check as new websites pop up every day. Legal issues arise when trading is being done on a website hosted outside India and in most of the cases, sellers use fake ids and change their IP to operate," said Triveni Singh, additional superintendent STF, who this month cracked a group of poachers who were involved in killing deers and selling their horns.
Singh explained that to escape the police radar, traders are using codename for animals and their parts. He also blames websites for being negligent and allowing such advertisements to be uploaded without filter.
"There are over 400 protected birds and animals but the websites and portals do not even know it.
They are selling animals and their parts not knowing that even they are party to the crime," Singh said.
CODE WORDS
A senior Wildlife Crime Control Bureau (WCCB) officer also confirmed that there are over 200 websites, which are being rampantly used by people to trade in animal parts. WCCB is a statutory multidisciplinary body established under the ministry of environment, forests and climate change, to combat organised wildlife crime in the country.
"People use code names such as aloo (potato) for musk deer, kola (banana) for elephant's tusk, etc. Despite the ban on all ivory ads, traders sell it using code words," a senior WCCB officer said, adding that these code names are frequently changed to stay away from the police net. For example, as soon as a law enforcement agency catches on 'white gold' as a code for ivory, a new code word pops up," Even People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) monitored a similar coding used by seller on OLX site.
"Koala, a threatened species that is illegal to keep as a 'pet' in any country, was being sold as 'Australian teddy bear'. Similarly, Tiger skin is often sold as 'stripped T-shirt'.
Illegal wildlife smugglers use code words and other techniques to mask their activities, making it virtually impossible for websites to be certain that its ads never facilitate the illegal wildlife trade," explained Nikunj Sharma, government affair liasion with People for Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA).
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