Probe into tiger poaching case leads to discovery of parallel drug racket stretching to multiple states and nations, and seizure of marijuana and costly racing bikes
Poachers in Central India’s tiger reserves now have a new side hustle — drug peddling.
Investigators say that in a first recovery of its kind, the Special Task Force (STF) of Madhya Pradesh police recovered around 1,000 kg of marijuana along with high-end racing bikes which poachers used to traverse through difficult forest terrain.
And it all started with a tiger poaching probe in Chandrapur in Maharashtra in the last week of January, when a known poacher named Ajit, with previous cases against him, was arrested.
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The first arrest
Following Ajit’s arrest in Maharashtra, the Madhya Pradesh police were alerted that some members of the poaching gang might be active in their jurisdiction, too. The MP STF activated its network of informers and managed to nab four persons — three of them juveniles — in Dindori of the state.
When the police searched the houses of three of the accused, they recovered around 900 kg of marijuana (retail market price upward of Rs 5 crore), eight spears and knife-shaped spears for hunting, hair of wild boars, and 52 crude bombs, which they used to kill wild animals. Besides poaching weapons and marijuana, the investigators also recovered 12 high-end racing bikes, which the poachers used for quick transport of marijuana. Most of these bikes are priced over Rs 3 lakh.
Call data analysis has shown the accused were getting frequent calls from Odisha. It is suspected that they procured marijuana from Odisha and peddled it in Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh.
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“We have focused our probe on the Odisha angle and efforts are on nab the rest of the gang members,” Pankaj Kumar Srivastava, Madhya Pradesh STF’s Special Director of General of Police, told The Federal.
Poaching trail leads to China
The investigation has also revealed that the poaching trail, which began from the tiger reserves in Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh, wound up in China via India’s Northeast and Myanmar. Body parts of the tiger, including skin and bones, are extensively used in Chinese traditional medicine.
Ajit, who was the first one to be arrested, has previous cases of tiger poaching registered against him. In one case, he was convicted and spent time behind bars, too. As the ambit of the case goes beyond India’s borders, a five-member Special Investigation Team (SIT) headed by an officer of the Wildlife Crime Control Bureau (WCCB) in Delhi has been formed to investigate it.
Investigators say many a time, smugglers sell hair of wild boars to clients, claiming it to be tiger hair. Drug peddling is a side business for them. Bombs are avoided in hunting tigers as any damage to the skin of the big cat reduces its price in the international market. Specific poaching traps are set near water bodies to pin down the tiger.
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Was Northeast used as conduit?
In the Chandrapur case, a forensic analysis of three seized samples – large hair, small piece of bone and one large tooth – confirmed that they belong to a tiger.
The Maharashtra probe had also led the investigators to Meghalaya where they have nabbed a former Assam Rifles constable named Lalneisung, 50, and a woman named Ning San Lun, who is alleged to be a Myanmar national, but is married to another Assam Rifles constable. Her Indian nationality is under scrutiny and is being looked into.
The arrests have raised suspicion about India’s north-eastern states being used as conduits to smuggle the contraband to Myanmar and then China.
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“We suspect that the gang involved in the case has managed to smuggle out at least eight to 10 tiger skins and other body parts from tiger reserves in Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh to China via Myanmar in the recent years,” an investigator told The Federal on the condition of anonymity.
Money trail of Rs 80 lakh
The first arrest in January exposed a money trail of around Rs 70-80 lakh via India’s northeast, hinting at the role of individuals from the region in the poaching and drug smuggling racket.
“The first arrest was made on January 25 in Chandrapur in Maharashtra, and we have so far managed to unearth a money trail of around Rs 70 to Rs 80 lakh that came from northeast-based conduits to the gang members of the poachers,” the investigator said.
As per the last tiger census done in 2022, India is estimated to be home to 3,682 tigers. Madhya Pradesh leads the pack with 785 tigers in its reserve areas. Maharashtra has 444 tigers. India is home to the 75 per cent of the world’s tiger population.
