NEW IND PRESS (Chennai, India) 31 October 06 Notorious star tortoise smuggler held
Chennai: Velacherry Forest Range officials have trapped a notorious star tortoise smuggler named in a star tortoise smuggling case here in June.
Acting on a tip-off, the Forest officials waited for Sasi Kapoor (24), a native of Karnataka, in front of the Koyambedu Bus Terminus and arrested him. On questioning he confessed to the crime, a forest official told this website’s newspaper.
“Sasi Kapoor is the main supplier of star tortoises to the international smugglers in the city. We have been searching for him after we came to know about his involvement in a case in last June, where we had seized 490 star tortoises. We received information that he would be coming to Koyambedu to collect money from his clients on Sunday evening and we trapped him there,” a senior forest official said.
Kapoor is one among the very few who directly collects the star tortoises from the field and supplies it to the smugglers without middlemen, the official said. “He collects the tortoises from Bhadravali district in Karnataka and sells each for Rs 100. His main client, Narayanan, was arrested in June,” the official said.
Kapoor had been collecting and supplying star tortoises for the last three years. “After collecting it from the forest lands, he transports it via train to the city and then sells it here. A case under various provisions of the Wild Life Protection Act has been booked against him and he was remanded to custody on Monday,” the official added.
Notorious star tortoise smuggler held