Orang-utan smuggler is foiled

INDONESIAN authorities have arrested a Russian tourist who was trying to smuggle a drugged orang-utan out of the resort island of Bali, according to a conservation official.

Andrei Zhestkov, 27, was arrested on Friday at Bali’s international airport after customs officers found a two-year-old male orang-utan (pictured) sleeping in a rattan basket placed in his luggage, said Ketut Catur Marbawa, an official with Bali’s conservation agency.

Mr Marbawa, whose agency is part of the environment and forestry ministry, said customs officers also found allergy pills, two geckos and five lizards in Zhestkov’s suitcase.

All the animals were alive.

He said Zhestkov told authorities he fed the orang-utan allergy pills mixed with milk, causing the animal to lose consciousness for up to three hours.

He said Zhestkov also told officials he bought the orang-utan for about $4200 from a market on Indonesia’s main island of Java after being told by a friend that he could bring it home as a pet.

Mr Marbawa said Zhestkov had yet to be charged because police were still investigating to see if there were links to international syndicates involved in wildlife trafficking.

Orang-utans are listed as critically endangered by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature. Only about 13,400 Sumatran orang-utans remain in the wild. A 2018 comprehensive study of Borneo’s orang-utans estimates their numbers have plummeted by more than 100,000 since 1999.