PEKANBARU, Indonesia: Indonesian police said Sunday that they have arrested two men suspected of being part of a ring that poaches and trades in endangered animals and seized from them several lion and leopard cubs and dozens of turtles.
One of the suspects, identified only as Yatno, was arrested Saturday in Pekanbaru, the capital of Riau province, after picking up suspicious boxes from a speedboat at a port in Dumai district, said Andri Sudarmadi, Riau police’s chief detective.
Police found several boxes containing four lion cubs, a leopard cub and 58 turtles in his van. The turtles and the leopard cub are listed as critically endangered by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora, or CITES, while the lion cubs are listed as endangered.
Yatno’s arrest led police to capture another suspect who was planning to sell the smuggled wildlife to a trader on Java island, Sudarmadi said at a news conference. The second suspect was identified only by his initials, IS.
Sudarmadi said that the two men were allegedly part of an international trafficking syndicate and that they bought the haul from a smuggler in Malaysia.
They told police each cub is valued at $32,000 on the black market, while the turtles fetch $1,200 apiece, Sudarmadi said.
The two suspects, if found guilty, face up to five years in jail and $7,000 in fines for attempting to smuggle wildlife.
Indonesia nabs 2 suspected smugglers of leopard, lion cubs
https://arab.news/jvxcz
Indonesia nabs 2 suspected smugglers of leopard, lion cubs
- One of the suspects was arrested after picking up suspicious boxes from a speedboat
- Authorities found four lion cubs, a leopard cub and 58 turtles in his van
US border agent shoots and wounds two people in Portland
- The Portland shooting unfolded Thursday afternoon as US Border Patrol agents were conducting a targeted vehicle stop, the Department of Homeland Security said in a statement
A US immigration agent shot and wounded a man and a woman in Portland, Oregon, authorities said on Thursday, leading local officials to call for calm given public outrage over the ICE shooting death of a Minnesota woman a day earlier.
“We understand the heightened emotion and tension many are feeling in the wake of the shooting in Minneapolis, but I am asking the community to remain calm as we work to learn more,” Portland police chief Bob Day said in a statement.
The Portland shooting unfolded Thursday afternoon as US Border Patrol agents were conducting a targeted vehicle stop, the Department of Homeland Security said in a statement.
The statement said the driver, a suspected Venezuelan gang member, attempted to “weaponize” his vehicle and run over the agents. In response, DHS said, “an agent fired a defensive shot” and the driver and a passenger drove away.
Reuters was unable to independently verify the circumstances of the incident.
Portland police said that the shooting took place near a medical clinic in eastern Portland. Six minutes after arriving at the scene and determining federal agents were involved in the shooting, police were informed that two people with gunshot wounds — a man and a woman — were asking for help at a location about 2 miles (3 km) to the northeast of the medical clinic.
Police said they applied tourniquets to the man and woman, who were taken to a hospital. Their condition was unknown.
The shooting came just a day after a federal agent from US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), a separate agency within the Department of Homeland Security, fatally shot a 37-year-old mother of three in her car in Minneapolis.
That shooting has prompted two days of protests in Minneapolis. Officers from both ICE and Border Patrol have been deployed in cities across the United States as part of Republican President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown.
While the aggressive enforcement operations have been cheered by the president’s supporters, Democrats and civil rights activists have decried the posture as an unnecessary provocation.
US officials contend criminal suspects and anti-Trump activists have increasingly used their cars as weapons, though video evidence has sometimes contradicted their claims.
Portland Mayor Keith Wilson said in a statement his city was now grappling with violence at the hands of federal agents and that “we cannot sit by while constitutional protections erode and bloodshed mounts.”
He called on ICE to halt all its operations in the city until an investigation can be completed.
“Federal militarization undermines effective, community-based public safety, and it runs counter to the values that define our region,” Wilson said. “I will use every legal and legislative tool available to protect our residents’ civil and human rights.”
