Police in Australia have dismantled what they believe is a smuggling ring that was attempting to export native lizards and reptiles worth more than 1.2 million Australian dollars ($800,000) to Hong Kong. <\/p>\n
Three men, aged 54, 59 and 31, and one woman, aged 41, were arrested in Sydney as part of the investigation, New South Wales Police said in a statement published Monday. <\/p>\n
The operation began in September 2023, when nine packages containing 59 live lizards were stopped en route to Hong Kong. <\/p>\n
All four suspected members of the group are scheduled to appear in court in January. <\/p>\n
\u201cPolice will allege in court the criminal group were catching live lizards and native Australian reptiles to export for profit to Hong Kong,\u201d the police statement said. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe animals were kept in poor conditions and bound in small containers when they were packaged to be sent,\u201d it added. <\/p>\n
Police said officers found a total 257 lizards and three snakes during the investigation, both in packages and in addresses used by the group. <\/p>\n
The reptiles \u201cwere taken to various zoos and wildlife parks for examination by a vet before being released back to the wild,\u201d the statement added. <\/p>\n
Police estimate the lizards were worth around 5,000 Australian dollars ($3,350) each, making a total of approximately 1.285 million Australian dollars ($860,000). <\/p>\n
The police didn\u2019t say why the lizards were being allegedly smuggled, but Hong Kong has long been considered a hub for illicit wildlife trade due to its busy port and status as a gateway into mainland China. <\/p>\n
World Wildlife Fund (WWF) Hong Kong also says that \u201cexotic pets are becoming increasingly popular\u201d in the semi-autonomous Chinese territory. <\/p>\n
\u201cRare species of turtles and tortoises, snakes, lizards, parrots, sugar gliders, hedgehogs, scorpions and many others, are traded as pets,\u201d the charity says on its website. <\/p>\n\n
Police in Australia have dismantled what they believe is a smuggling ring that was attempting to export native lizards and reptiles worth more than 1.2 million Australian dollars ($800,000) to Hong Kong. Three men, aged 54, 59 and 31, and one woman, aged 41, were arrested in Sydney as part of the investigation, New South <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":13723,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-13722","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13722","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13722"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13722\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13723"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13722"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13722"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13722"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}