Poaching cartel busted

Meerut/New Delhi, April 30 

More than 100 illegally imported firearms, 117 kg of nilgai meat, horns and leopard and black buck hides were today allegedly seized in raids, including one on the residence of a retired Colonel, even as the DRI claimed to have busted a global poaching syndicate.

Of the seizures made, 117 kg nilgai (blue bull) meat stored in a refrigerator, ivory, five deer skulls, horns of sambar, antlers of antelope and black buck and 40 guns were seized from a makeshift warehouse at the house of a retired Colonel, Devindra Kumar, in Meerut, DRI and a Forest Department officials said.

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The 17-hour raid at the retired officer’s Civil Lines residence yesterday was carried out jointly by the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) and the state Forest Department. It continued till 3.30 am.

“The Colonel’s son, Prashant, a national-level shooter, is a key suspect,” a DRI official said. 

One of the members of this syndicate had recently killed a leopard near Uttarakhand’s Jim Corbett National Park area, a DRO official said. Unaccounted cash totalling Rs 1 crore and two lakh cartridges were also seized.

The alleged racket came to light after three persons, one of them a Slovenian, suspected to be a supplier of illegal arms, were intercepted at Delhi’s Indira Gandhi International airport on Saturday. They had come from Ljubljana via Istanbul, carrying 25 prohibited lethal weapons. 

They had incorrectly declared the quantity and value of the arms and ammunition and tried to get these cleared by misusing the scheme meant for renowned shooters, the DRI official said. Rules permit professional shooters to import a limited quantity of arms and ammunition for practice.

Subsequently, searches were conducted in Delhi and Meerut. The DRI said that firearms of various make and models — Glock (Austria), Italy-made Beretta and Germany’s Arsenal, Benelle and Blaser — were seized along with expensive cameras, thermal-imaging binoculars and cartridges. 

Nobody has been arrested. The shooter, alleged to be part of the syndicate, is at large, say official sources.  — PTI