A man tried to smuggle baby orangutan in a suitcase

News24xx.com -  A Russian man named Andrei Zhestkov was arrested for attempting to smuggle a baby orangutan in a suitcase. He was captured on Friday, at Ngurah Rai Airport, Bali.

Other than orangutan, he also hid two geckos and four chameleons. They were all found in a small rattan basket in one of his suitcases. According to police chief Ruddi Setiawan, Zhestkov was on his way to Russia.

“The suspect said that the baby orangutan was taken from Java to Bali. We are still investigating where he got the baby orangutan,” he said, as cited from CNN.

Orangutan is an endangered animal and capturing it is a crime. Now, they only exist in Sumatra and Borneo. The population decreased from 148,000 in 1999 to 70,000 in 2015. Most of them died due to illegal logging and habitat loss.

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