Ministry of Environmental Protection catches four-legged traffickers from a man selling them to a zoo to on target trip to South America
Colombia has seized more than 300 tarantulas destined for Germany, police say, the latest outbreak of an exotic animal smuggling crime that has proved a lucrative business for buyers in the German market.
The eight-legged trade, with police seizing dozens of tarantulas a month, was found out by alert officers on Thursday who had already caught a man selling them to the Berlin zoo on a trip to South America last month.
Police have confiscated more than 2,000 of the arachnids in recent months and last week rescued 10 black vipers allegedly headed for a zoo in Schleswig Holstein, Germany’s third-biggest state.
“The scariest thing is how popular these species are in Germany, especially the narwhals which are enormously popular,” said Adriano Tabarejo, president of Colombia’s national police.
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Local police said they had identified a man in the town of Santiago Pinilla in Meta department who had arranged to buy two tarantulas, but his deal was terminated when the buyer learned the animal was found.
Police found the others at the house of a 45-year-old man who had shipped them to the port of Cartagena.
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Tabarejo said traffickers use coyotes to sneak the animals into Colombia and then deliver them to buyers, mostly in Germany.
Police said the sellers frequently found new suppliers in Colombia when their previous batch of customers were caught.