Indian customs agents in Mumbai said they had stopped a passenger who arrived from Thailand with a cargo of living snakes, the third crisis of this month.
“Customs agents … foiled another attempt at wildlife smuggling, 16 living snakes … seized of passenger back from Thailand,” said customs officers from the Indian financial center.
The passenger, who arrived on Sunday, was arrested, said the customs agency in a statement, with “a more in -depth investigation in progress”.
Living snakes included reptiles often sold in pet trade and were largely non -vendomous, or with venom too weak to affect people.
They included garter snakes, a Rhinoceros rat snake and a Kenyan sand boa, among others.
In early June, customs agents stopped smuggling passengers smuggling dozens of poisonous vipers, also arriving from Thailand.
A few days later, the police arrested another traveler carrying 100 creatures, including lizards, sun birds and climbing opossums.
The circulation of fauna trade, which fights against the smuggling of animals and wild plants, warned against a “very disturbing” trend in traffic trained by the exotic trade in pets.
More than 7,000 animals, dead and alive, have been seized along the air road in Thailand-ind in the past 3.5 years, he said.
Snakes are a relatively unusual crisis in Mumbai, with customs agents more regularly displaying photos of gold, silver, cannabis or suspected cocaine pills swallowed by passengers.
However, in February, customs officials at Mumbai airport also arrested a smuggler with five Siamang Gibbons, a small monkey from Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand.
These small creatures, listed as in the process of disappearing by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature, were “ingeniously hidden” in a plastic crate placed inside the passenger bag, said customs agents.
In November, customs agents seized a passenger with a living cargo of 12 turtles, and a month ago, four Calaou birds, all on planes arriving from Thailand.
In September, two passengers were arrested with five juvenile Caimans, a reptile in the Alligators family.
