“Every time the mother was on a tree, we felled that tree, and when she jumped on another tree, we also felled that tree. We cut down the trees until they can not go anywhere else. Tens of thousands of dollars are paid to buyers from Asia and the Middle East for an orangutan baby”.

A former orangutan smuggler now working as an informer tells how babies are torn by their mothers. At least three orangutan babies are to be taken out of the jungle every week and transported mainly through Thailand to third countries, especially in the Middle East, where owning an exotic rainforest animal is a great status symbol. Demand is always there, and what these babies experience is cruel.

The illegal trade in monkeys is a billion dollar business. Orangutan – they are hunted, even prostituted and brutally executed, or they kill their mothers and smuggle the babies to Thailand, as in a recent case. Orangutans, which only live in the wild on the islands of Borneo and Sumatra, suffer from the illegal trade. There are even orangutan brothels, we reported: https://serbiananimalsvoice.com/2018/05/20/the-monkeys-brothels-of-indonesia/

Three alleged Indonesian traders were arrested by customs officials on the Malaysian holiday island of Langkawi in late September 2018 in an attempt to transport small orangutans and other animals to Thailand. It was not the first time this year that smugglers were caught trying to cross Orang Utan across the border.

Journalists from Australia have gone in search of clues and found an informant who had also worked as a smuggler for orangutans. Reliable sources told Australian journalists that the police know who the perpetrators are, where they live, and there is evidence, but no arrests were made.

The informant reports how gangs steal baby orangutans to sell them as pets or status symbols, almost completely eradicating an endangered species.

The informant also said that smugglers often use commercial flights and paid corrupt officials – information from other sources confirms that.

“The demand is always there, they always want orangutans,” said the former smuggler.
“Every week, I’ve got at least three orangutans and given them to two women and one man. This demand was there every week. ”
A hunter receives about $ 50 to take a baby away from his mother, who is usually shot or beaten to death. He talked about how the babies are hidden in their luggage and how they got hugs as a substitute for their mothers’ pillow.

The former smuggler claimed that a recent brutal murder had persuaded him to stop trading orangutans.

“I looked at myself and I imagined that it would have happened to me to be separated from my child,” he said

“After swearing an oath, I felt I had dealt with people.”

“When I see baby orangutans now, I think about my baby.”

Two babies and the taxi

 In a police raid in Bangkok, two Sumatran baby orangutans were saved and they made headlines just before Christmas 2016, when Nobita and Shizuka found themselves in a box in a taxi. They were probably drugged after their mothers were shot or beaten.

The two orangutan babies Nobita and Shizuka, who were found in the taxi, are in a state rescue center south of Bangkok a year later, far from their jungle. The taxi driver was arrested but quickly released. Nobody was punished.

It is a well-lubricated, well-organized criminal gang. Behind her stands the “Mafia,” said Edwin Wiek, founder of the Wildlife Friends Foundation in Thailand.

Wiek operates several conservation projects and programs throughout Southeast Asia. The native Dutchman is a pioneer in the protection of wild animals.

The return of babies to Sumatra is his ultimate goal, but the rehabilitation of orangutans is laborious and costly. Even if they are released into the wilderness one day, he worries about their fate.

“Unfortunately, we have recently found that some of the orangutans returned to Indonesia from illegal captivity have landed in a zoo in Indonesia, where they are bred without any system, for commercial purposes only,” he said.

“These government officials in Indonesia know very well what is going on,” said Wiek. “They know who the hunters are, they know who the traders are, and without the help of the authorities, they would not take these animals out of the country.”

https://netzfrauen.org/2018/12/28/orangutan-5/

My comment: World trade in wildlife is evolving as the world of drug trafficking. Where they have money, they are covert … the profits are so high and the risks are so low that this business is an invitation to corruption!

The misery of our world arises from the corrupt oligarchy of the rulers, and the next misery is a discouraged, wordless and cowardly society with indifference and zero empathy, which only observes how the ruling mafia gradually obliterates all life.

And this society is the one that always wants to say us, that humans are more important than animals, it wants to tell us how we have to behave and that we cannot save this world because it is as it is.

My best regards, Venus