Source: Xinhuanet
11-26-2007 18:18
A luxury store owner based in Bangkok was convicted on Monday for breaching Thailand's wildlife protection law and sentenced to two years in prison, the ASEAN Wildlife Enforcement Network (ASEAN-WEN) said in a statement.
The store owner, Reyaz Ahmad Mir, an Indian national, pleaded guilty to charges of illegally importing and selling "shahtoosh" shawls made from the wool derived from poaching highly endangered Tibetan Antelopes (Pantholops hodgsonii).
He was sentenced to two years in prison and fined 600 U.S. dollars. The Thai criminal court also ruled that the government confiscate all contraband shawls seized from the defendant. In this case, the shawls were worth at least 20,000 U.S. dollars.
Moreover, a second and larger case against additional Bangkok- based traffickers in shahtoosh is pending, said the statement.
The two high-profile international wildlife trafficking cases involved hundreds of shahtoosh shawls being smuggled from China, through India, and into Thailand. One shawl is normally made from the wool of 3 to 5 dead Tibetan Antelopes.
In July 2006, after four months of undercover work, the Thai government's wildlife crime task force raided several stores in Bangkok, arresting three Indian nationals on charges of illegally selling shahtoosh shawls. The vendors told undercover investigators that they normally sold the shawls to wealthy tourists. Over one hundred shawls were seized from two high-end Bangkok shops alone.
Endangered Tibetan Antelopes, also known as the Chiru, are hunted and killed by poachers to make shahtoosh shawls, which are sold on the black market for between 1,200-12,000 U.S. dollars a piece. There may be as few as 50,000 Tibetan Antelopes left in the wild, a sharp drop from the 1 million that roamed the Tibetan Plateau early last century. The antelope has been listed on Appendix I of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora since 1979, which prohibits all trade in shahtoosh.
Editor:Zhang Ning
