Customs officials thwart attempt to smuggle wildlife

Law enforcers seized three trucks which were reportedly carrying ibexes and falcons.

HYDERABAD: Customs officials thwarted an illegal attempt to ship animals, including falcons, houbara bustards and Sindh ibexes, in a chartered plane from the airport in Hyderabad on Tuesday. 

At about 12:45 pm, a small chartered plane landed at the airport, where around a dozen vehicles including jeeps, cars and three trucks loaded with animals were waiting. The airport does not have much traffic - about three planes land there each week. The trucks reportedly contained live animals that had been caught from different parts of rural Sindh and the mountainous areas along the Hyderabad-Karachi highway.

But the media and Customs officials got wind of this and rushed to the airport. As the plane’s cargo hatch opened and men began offloading the cages, journalists with cameras started taking pictures. Amjad Aman, the assistant collector from the customs department, said that the intelligence wing conducted a raid. He added that the officials searched the plane - which he claimed was from the United Arab Emirates - and found a number of cages inside it. The head of the anti-smuggling squad in Hyderabad, Ghulam Rasool Memom, said that the raid had been conducted by the director of intelligence, Irfan Ahmed. The plane took off at around 1:40pm - without the haul that it had come for.

The Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) could not be reached for comments to confirm whether the plane had indeed taken off from the UAE, but the manager of the airport, Mehreen Bhutto, said that the plane had indeed originated from there.

Under the special hunting permits the federal government granted to Gulf dignitaries, live animals cannot be transported across the border.

A police official went to the airport along with the SSP Hyderabad, Pir Farid Jan Sarhandi, said the police was told that the Customs officials were wrangling with wildlife officials at the airport. “When we got there, we checked the licences and let the people go because everything was clear,” said the police official. Amjad Shaikh, the deputy director of wildlife, said that he had no knowledge of the raid.

The identities of the people who were involved could not be ascertained. CAA as well as customs and police officials who dealt with the men who were attempting to ship the animals were not willing to disclose who they were. Sarhandi took custody of the three trucks but later, they were reportedly sent to Karachi.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 21^st, 2012.