Maldivian tourist caught smuggling 25 live birds out of Thailand

Officials at Suvarnabhumi Airport in Bangkok caught a tourist attempting to smuggle 25 exotic live birds out of Thailand on a flight to the Maldives yesterday morning, reports KhaoSod.

Customs officials made quite the discovery when they inspected luggage destined to board flight PG711 to Malé in the Maldives at 9.20am, reported Prasert Sornsathapornkul, the Director of the Division for the Protection of Wildlife and Wild Plants under the Department of National Parks, Wildlife and Plant Conservation.

Stuffed inside two suitcases, officials found 25 live birds including black kites, buffy fish owls, and barred eagle owls – all CITES-listed species – with an estimated collective value of 100,000 baht.

Smuggling live wildlife out of Thailand without permission is a violation of the Wildlife Conservation and Preservation Act (2019), the Animal Epidemic Act (2015), and the Customs Act (2017).

According to the amended Wildlife Conservation and Preservation Act of 2019, trafficking CITES-listed species is a crime punishable by up to 10 years imprisonment.

The tourist, a holder of a Maldivian passport, was taken to the Suvarnabhumi Airport Police Station to face prosecution.

The rescued wild birds were sent to a team who takes care of the health of wild animals under the Department of National Parks, Wildlife and Plant Conservation for initial health checkups. The director didn’t say what was next for the confiscated birds.

Last month, two specially-trained Labradors from England flew to Thailand to help sniff out smuggled pangolins, which are the most trafficked animal in the world.

A wildlife trafficker was caught with two Asian black bear cubs in Mae Hong Son province in northern Thailand last month, believed to have smuggled the bears across the border from Myanmar.

Thai police rescued 47 macaques last month being smuggled out of the country for probable use in traditional Chinese medicine.

Two hard-working police beagles stationed at Suvarnabhumi Airport sniffed out raw duck from China last month and smoked bats from the Chinese mainland in November.