SURABAYA, Indonesia – The Indonesian authorities said on April 15 they have arrested six people allegedly involved in smuggling endangered Komodo dragons native to the archipelago and destined for Thailand.<\/p>\n
Two suspects were arrested in February in the port city of Surabaya on the east coast of Java island as they got off a ship with three live Komodo dragons \u2013 the world\u2019s largest living lizard. <\/p>\n
Further investigation led to four more arrests in the weeks that followed.<\/p>\n
Police said the animals had been obtained from \u201csuppliers or hunters\u201d in Indonesia\u2019s East Nusa Tenggara province, where they are native to a handful of small islands.<\/p>\n
The suspects are accused of buying the dragons for 5.5 million rupiah (S$408) apiece and selling them for six times the price, apparently to be shipped to clients in Thailand.<\/p>\n
According to East Java police, the suspects have smuggled and traded at least 20 Komodo dragons since January 2025, and pocketed some US$33,000 (S$41,960).<\/p>\n
They face up to five years in prison and a fine.<\/p>\n
The International Union for Conservation of Nature lists the Komodo dragon as endangered, with a global population of about 3,400, including juveniles.<\/p>\n
The fearsome reptiles, which can grow to three metres in length and weigh up to 90kg, are threatened by human activity and by climate change destroying their habitat.<\/p>\n
Poachers collect them to be sold as pets or display animals.<\/p>\n
Komodo dragons in the wild are found only in Indonesia\u2019s World Heritage-listed Komodo National Park and on neighbouring Flores island.<\/p>\n
Police said on April 15 they had also arrested two suspects for smuggling 140kg of pangolin scales from the north-western province of Riau to Surabaya.<\/p>\n
Pangolins are among the world\u2019s most endangered species, and their scales are prized in countries like China and Vietnam, where they are used in traditional remedies even though they provide no scientifically proven medicinal benefit. AFP<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SURABAYA, Indonesia – The Indonesian authorities said on April 15 they have arrested six people allegedly involved in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":399689,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[61,60,82,263],"class_list":{"0":"post-399688","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wildlife","8":"tag-ie","9":"tag-ireland","10":"tag-science","11":"tag-wildlife"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/399688","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=399688"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/399688\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/399689"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=399688"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=399688"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=399688"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}