{"id":254684,"date":"2025-11-01T04:17:07","date_gmt":"2025-11-01T04:17:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/254684\/"},"modified":"2025-11-01T04:17:07","modified_gmt":"2025-11-01T04:17:07","slug":"exotic-apes-seized-at-mumbai-airport-dw-10-31-2025-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/254684\/","title":{"rendered":"Exotic apes seized at Mumbai airport \u2013 DW \u2013 10\/31\/2025"},"content":{"rendered":"

Two gibbons were discovered by Indian customs officials in checked baggage at Mumbai’s airport on Thursday.<\/p>\n

One of the tiny primates was dead, and the other was seen being cared for by an official in a video shared by Indian Customs.<\/p>\n

Officials said the exotic\u00a0animals\u00a0were shipped for delivery in India<\/a> by a wildlife trafficking “syndicate.”<\/p>\n

One passenger, who had traveled from Malaysia via Thailand, was arrested in Mumbai by officers acting on “specific intelligence,” without providing further detail.<\/p>\n

“A subsequent search of their checked baggage, a trolley bag, led to the discovery and seizure of two silvery gibbons, one live and one found dead, which were concealed in a basket,” the customs department said.<\/p>\n

The silvery gibbon is found in the rainforests of Java in Indonesia.<\/p>\n

India a market for smuggled exotic animals<\/p>\n

Over 7,000 animals, both dead and alive,\u00a0have been seized<\/a> along the Thailand-India air route over the past three and a half years, according to data provided by\u00a0wildlife trade monitor TRAFFIC.<\/p>\n

Several of the more recent incidents were reported at the Mumbai airport. Last week, a passenger was arrested attempting to smuggle snakes, tortoises and a raccoon.<\/p>\n

In June, two passengers from Thailand were caught in Mumbai toting dozens of venomous vipers and more than 100 other creatures, including lizards, sunbirds and tree-climbing possums.<\/p>\n

Gibbons native to the forests of Indonesia, Malaysia, and Thailand were also picked up from a smuggler by customs officials in Mumbai.<\/p>\n

How New Delhi’s monkey whisperers help the Indian government<\/p>\n

To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video<\/a><\/p>\n

Edited by: Darko Janjevic<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Two gibbons were discovered by Indian customs officials in checked baggage at Mumbai’s airport on Thursday. One of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":253412,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[64,63,128,338],"class_list":{"0":"post-254684","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wildlife","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-science","11":"tag-wildlife"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/254684","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=254684"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/254684\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/253412"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=254684"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=254684"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=254684"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}