Smugglers target India and Nepal's rare insects

Russians and Japanese have been caught with butterflies and beetles that are bred and sold as ornamental bugs in Japan

By Nirmal Ghosh
INDIA CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI - When Indian forest-protection staff challenged two Russians and their Nepalese porters in the remote Yuksom forest of Kanchenjunga National Park in Sikkim a few days ago, they stumbled on an unusual find: nearly 20 kg of butterflies, moths and beetles.

Coincidentally, reports from Nepal the same week said two Japanese men and three Nepalese had been arrested on July 28 while trying to smuggle 271 pairs of indigenous stag beetles to Japan.

In what is becoming an increasingly lucrative trade, rare insects are being smuggled out of India and Nepal.

'Smuggling of beetles is on the rise over the past two years,' said Mr Narayan Prasad Poudel, director of Nepal's National Parks and Wildlife Conservation Department.

The stag beetles, called Chimte kira, are found in the foothills of the Himalayas. Collected by locals during the rainy season from June to September, they can sell for anything between US$20 (S$36) and US$100 a pair.

The buyers are mainly Japanese or agents working for Japanese.

'The stag beetle is said to be in high demand in Japan for its ornamental value, mostly for the affluent people,' a local newspaper report quoted one of the Nepalese accomplices as saying.

This is the fourth time beetle smugglers have been arrested in Nepal.

In June last year, a Japanese man, along with two Nepalese accomplices, was arrested for collecting stag beetles without a permit in south Nepal.

He was tried at a local court, fined and released. He told the court that he was collecting the beetles for breeding in Japan.

Collecting wild insects, including beetles, without permits in Nepal carries a fine of US$120 or two years imprisonment, or both.

In India, a Russian conservation organisation, with the help of the Internet, alerted wildlife protection organisations in New Delhi, alleging that the two Russians arrested in Sikkim were notorious criminals involved 'for decades' in the international trade in endangered species.

'They have self-made papers 'confirming' that they are scientists,' according to an e-mail alert from Mr Vladimir Dinets of the Actual Biology Fund.

'However, these two men (Viktor Sinyaev and Oleg Amosov) are professional criminals who have been involved in international trade in endangered species for decades.'

The e-mail was circulated to a newsgroup for wildlife and environmental scientists and conservationists.

The two Russians were arrested after a tip-off from the Kanchenjunga Conservation Committee.

The New Delhi-based Wildlife Protection Society of India (WPSI) has sent a lawyer to Sikkim to assist the forest department.