Jakarta (Greeners) – Environment and Forestry Monitoring and Law Enforcement Agency Kalimantan Region and West Kalimantan police managed to confiscate forty frozen pangolins (Manis javanicus) from a house in Tanjungpura, South Pontianak subdistrict.
David Muhammad, head of Region III of the agency, said that the bust came from an information given by Scorpion Wildlife Trade Monitoring Group, an NGO concerned with wildlife trafficking.
Besides the pangolins which amount to 200 kilograms of scales, four dead large three-shrews, one dead kancil kept in a freezer, one offset of pangolin, and one alive pangolin.
“From the bust, we have arrested two men, LN (34) and AB (50),” he said on Friday (28/10).
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From the two arrested men, LN was named as suspect meanwhile AB is still as a witness. Nevertheless, Muhammad underlined they were still after other traffickers.
“These two are part of illegal wildlife trafficking syndicate,” he said.
Meanwhile, senior investigator of Scorpion, Marison Guciano, said that West Kalimantan had turned into the largest producer for pangolin market in the country, which spans from borders of Indonesia to Malaysia.
Furthermore, he said that people who hunt in the forest already aware that pangolin was protected but due to its high price, it still most hunted animal.
“There are lots of small roads that make border areas hard to control. Pangolin sellers mostly cover the scales with other commodities such as spice to be sold in Sarawak,” said Guciano.
READ ALSO: Weak Protection, Illegal Wildlife Trade Increases in Indonesia
Convention International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) had declared pangolins as the most trafficked animal on earth.
Police Commissioner for Certain Criminal Charge Asel Adi Saputra said that pangolins have been trafficked to overseas in line with market demands. In 2016, he said, there had been many cases involving pangolins managed to be prevented by the police.
Reports by Danny Kosasih
22 Des 2023 
