Airport authorities foil animal smuggling attempt
JAKARTA (JP): Soekarno-Hatta International Airport officials have foiled an attempt to smuggle a collection of reptiles, pythons, monitors and turtles out of the country, an official said on Thursday.
Airport quarantine director Lukas A. Tonga said the animals had been packed in an unlocked bag, which was about to be loaded onto Garuda Indonesia flight 830, scheduled to depart for Singapore at 5:05 p.m. on Tuesday.
"The loaders became suspicious of the bag's contents after they detected something moving inside, so they reported it to the airport's security guards," Lukas said.
The quarantine office, which received the report over two hours later, was informed by airport security that the owner could not be arrested since he was already on board the plane, he explained.
One of Lukas' subordinates, Gabriel Hayon, quoted the airport officers as saying that the owner of the bag was identified as Leong Kok Tieng, who held a Malaysian passport with the number A 6105296.
"His identity was traced from the baggage tag," Gabriel told The Jakarta Post.
He was not certain why airport officers could not ask Tieng to get off the plane for questioning.
"This is not only about smuggling and damaging our country's environment. The owner could also be charged for endangering other people's lives since he was carrying dangerous animals, like pythons, in an unlocked bag on a plane," Gabriel said.
"With the absence of a padlock, the bag could have opened at anytime and the animals could have escaped and bitten one of the passengers on board," he explained.
According to Lukas, all of the animals, most of which were young, were kept in separate cardboard and plastic boxes and cloth pouches inside the bag.
"The bag is just like an ordinary sports bag," Gabriel added.
The boxes inside the bag contained 10 pythons -- including five green pythons, which are a protected species -- a Papuan tree boa, a King cobra, two monitors, two dry land turtles, two small porcupines, 46 lizards and three frogs, Lukas said.
Gabriel said some of the snakes and lizards had died while being kept in the quarantine office.
"We hope the case can be quickly resolved so we can send them to Taman Safari park (in Cisarua) soon. The protected species will be sent to the Forest Protection and Nature Conservation Directorate," he said, after saying he was worried about properly feeding the animals.
Lukas said he believed the animals had been collected by the Malaysian from areas in the eastern part of Indonesia, where they were worth as much as Rp 10 million.
"But they could be sold abroad for about Rp 100 million," he said.
The illegal export and trade of such animals is forbidden under Law No. 5/1990 for natural resources and ecosystem conservation and Law No. 16/1992 for fish, animal and plant quarantine.
Violators face a maximum sentence of three years in prison and a Rp 150 million fine. (bsr)