Exotic wildlife including meerkat, fat tail gerbil, green iguana and even tarantula spiders which were allegedly being smuggled in from Bangkok, were seized at the Chennai international airport on Friday. Ibrahim Shah, 38, who arrived from Bangkok via Thai Airways has been detained in connection with the incident.
During interrogation, the officers discovered two plastic containers, a tiffin box and a cake box concealed among chocolates and wafers. The animals and insects were found inside these boxes. On questioning, he informed that the stroller bag was given to him by someone outside Bangkok airport with instructions to handover the same to an unknown person outside airport. He was taken outside the airport but no one came to receive the bag.
Wildlife Crime Control Bureau officials identified these as meerkats (2), fat tail gerbil (4), sphynx rat, albino pacman frog, tarantula spiders (3), chameleon and green iguana. A team of veterinary doctors were called from Arignar Anna Zoological Park inspected the animals and certified that they were in healthy condition. The Animal Quarantine Officials recommended to deport the wild life species back to country of origin as the passenger did not have any NOC/ DGFT license for import into India.
The exotic species were seized under the provisions of Customs Act 1962 .