[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]Air Intelligence Unit (AIU) detained a man on charges of smuggling a leopard cub from Thailand on Saturday at Chennai International Airport. Quarantine rules and restrictions on being livestock apart, the man claimed that it was a crossbreed of a cat and a dog.<\/p>\n
The suspect, Kaja Moideen (45), was caught at the security check when he arrived from Bangkok. Officers became suspicious when they heard sound of an animal coming from a pink basket that the man was holding.<\/p>\n
They found that there was one month old Leopard cub in the basket. Then the officers called in the Wildlife Crime Control Bureau (WGGB). A veterinary doctor from Aringar Anna Zoological Park was called in for medical examination.<\/p>\n
The cub weighted 1.1 kilogram, and is believed to be healthy. She will now be kept at the Aringar Anna Zoological Park, Chennai.<\/p>\n
Wildlife Crime Control Bureau stated that the leopard was a species protected under Wildlife Schedule 1 and smuggling or rearing them as pets was illegal.<\/p>\n
Moideen told the officials that he had bought the cub in Thailand for `5,000 to raise it and sell it to a circus for a large sum. No permission was sought, customs officials said.<\/p>\n
Customs officials decided not to send the cub back to Thailand and instead sent it to Vandalur zoo where its health could be ensured. A decision to keep it for public viewing will be taken after 30 days, officials said.<\/p>\n
Moideen was arrested and will be remanded under the Wild Life Protection Act, 1972. Further investigations are on to find out why the cub was smuggled, and if it was to be sold to a customer in Chennai.<\/p>\n
(Inputs from media reports)[\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column][\/vc_row]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]Air Intelligence Unit (AIU) detained a man on charges of smuggling a leopard cub from Thailand on Saturday at Chennai International Airport. Quarantine rules and restrictions on being livestock apart, the man claimed that it was a crossbreed of a cat and a dog. The suspect, Kaja Moideen (45), was caught at the security check […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":55879,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_eb_attr":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true},"categories":[1497],"tags":[65178,65180,65179,52641],"yst_prominent_words":[65174,65168,65173,65167,65164,6303,65172,65171,65166,65177,65176,37773,65169,26375,3904,37810,65170,65165,65163,65175],"ppma_author":[140543],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/d2r2ijn7njrktv.cloudfront.net\/apnlive\/uploads\/2019\/02\/03183710\/Leopard-cub.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"authors":[{"term_id":140543,"user_id":4,"is_guest":0,"slug":"apnnewsdesk","display_name":"APN Live","avatar_url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/478eacb893eda88aa6ed8d99b005bf58?s=96&r=g"}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/apnlive.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55876"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/apnlive.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/apnlive.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apnlive.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apnlive.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=55876"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/apnlive.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55876\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apnlive.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/55879"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/apnlive.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=55876"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apnlive.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=55876"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apnlive.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=55876"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apnlive.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=55876"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apnlive.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ppma_author?post=55876"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}