Berhampur: Acting on a tip-off, the Special Task Force (STF) of Crime Branch Friday arrested a pangolin smuggler in Berhampur town in Ganjam district.
The accused was identified as Jamshed.
According to STF officials, Jamshed used to traffic pangolins from Odisha to Bangladesh. He carried out the illegal transportation to the neighbouring country through the states of Madhya Pradesh and Assam, the police said.
Acting on reliable information about the presence of the smuggler in the town area, a police party conducted a raid and apprehended accused Jamshed.
A case has been registered against the accused under relevant Sections of the IPC, police officials said.
It may be noted here that a pangolin smuggler identified as Samsuddin Khan of Begunia in Khordha district had been arrested by Daspalla Mahanadi Wildlife Division after being caught red handed with pangolin scales weighing about 5 kg June, 19, 2018.
Subsequently, the case was transferred to STF, which immediately took Samsuddin on remand and during interrogation facts were extracted about involvement of interstate and international gang.
It was revealed that the gang collected the scales from poachers of Kalahandi, Kandhamal and Boudh in Odisha; Seoni and Chhindwara in Madhya Pradesh along with Gondia, Chandrapur and Gadchiroli in Maharashtra.
After collecting these scales they used to send it to Guwahati in Assam, mostly by train and sometimes by truck. The truck carrying leather of cow, sheep and buffalo were used to cover illegal transportation of pangolin scales.
STF arrested the main trader of International Syndicate identified as Amir Hussain Laskar, a resident of Silchar in Assam.
During interrogation, he disclosed that the pangolin scales are smuggled from Khordha and Berhampur to China via Myanmar and Vietnam by Samsuddin, his son Allarakha Khan of Khordha along with Mohammad Jamshed and Mohammad Mustaq of Berhampur.
All the accused were previously involved in two cases registered by Madhya Pradesh forest department in Seoni and Balaghat district over illegal trade of pangolin scales.
STF had previously arrested one Lalten Kunga of Kolasib in Mizoram, Md Riyaz of Sorada in Ganjam and Rabani Khan of Baliguda in Kandhamal along with Samsuddin, Allarakha and Amir Hussain.
PNN
