CBI takes over star tortoises smuggling case

Chennai

The Customs officials recovered 2,247 star tortoise from the foreign post office which was about to be smuggled to Bangkok last month and it was handed over to the Velachery wildlife department. The Chennai customs and the Wildlife Crime Control Bureau registered a case and were investigating to nab the people behind this. A few days ago, the officers arrested Vinoth (25) of Vellore who was linked to the smuggling. During the inquiry, they found that many international smugglers are linked in the case. The Customs and the wildlife bureau decided to hand over the case to the CBI for further inquiry.

This could be the first time in India that a star tortoise case was handed over to the CBI, even though cases of the gold smuggling rackets, involving many international players, were never given to CBI by Customs.