At least three to four instances of bogus applications being placed on the government portal to make unlawful consignments appear legitimate if they are caught during transfer have been discovered by enforcement officials in the past few months.
Agni Mitra, deputy director of the Wildlife Crime Control Bureau's eastern area, said, "We have found at least three to four such incidents in which false applications have been placed on the government's portal, demanding transfer of some exotic animal species from one state to another."
The centre has published a guide in June 2020 on how to apply for the import of exotic species, declare any existing stocks, and transfer them from one state to another using the Parivesh portal.
According to a senior authority knowledgeable about the subject, this portal has been used by certain traffickers.
"The mode of operation resembles this in some ways. If someone in Mizoram needs an exotic snake, they might apply through the site claiming to have one (even though they don't) and to want to give it to someone in Karnataka. The latter, meantime, crosses the international border with the exotic snake. The guy in Mizoram would apply on the portal just one or two days later, or possibly on the same day, stating that he couldn't maintain the snakes and wanted to transfer them to another person in Karnataka, according to the official. The traffickers attempt to fabricate fraudulent documentation and claim that it was only a transfer if the shipment is intercepted by the enforcement agents in any state along its journey.
The issue was also raised at a symposium on wildlife crime held earlier this week by the Mizoram Law Department in collaboration with the Mizoram Police Department and the State Ministry of Environment Forestry and Customs Department in Aizawal.
“In one such case discovered a few months ago, the trafficker claimed he had three mangrove snakes and said he lived in Bangalore, He mentioned Rajasthan as the state and Kanpur as the village," the official said. The luggage was confiscated in Manipur. Attenuated mangrove snakes are found in Southeast Asian countries such as Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia and the Philippines.
“We recently seized a shipment in the Saiha district of Mizoram, which borders Myanmar. The application was only uploaded to his Parivesh portal 24 hours ago. Most of the information needed to complete the application was missing, such as approval from the NOC from the state's chief hunting officer and approval from the DGFT, and the person simply wrote "not applicable," said a senior Mizoram official. Hunting Superintendent L Sailo said.
officials said almost all the cargo was routed through northeastern India, especially Mizoram. Several shipments of exotic animals smuggled across the India-Myanmar border have been intercepted in Mizoram and Assam.
In May of this year, the Mizoram Police seized one of the largest shipments in recent memory and rescued some 468 exotic animals, including snakes, sloths, beavers and pothos. A kangaroo was rescued from West Bengal in early April.
“Wild animals can transmit pathogens, and the illegal trade in such exotic animals can lead to a wide variety of diseases that can spread from animal to animal or animal to human. Some of the animals given the chance to escape can become entrenched and invasive, threatening local biodiversity," said chief executive of Aranyak, a Guwahati-based wildlife NGO. said Bibhab Kumar Talukdar,
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