Man arrested for smuggling kangaroos

It seems that animal smuggling has become the trendy thing lately. Just in the past month a man was nabbed at LAX smuggling lizards, and another man was arrested in Norway smuggling pythons. Both of these guys had wrapped up the critters and strapped them to their chest.

Now a man in Indonesia has been arrested for smuggling kangaroos. Since roos are a wee bit too big to tie to one's body, especially when there's ten of them, he made the logical choice of smuggling them by boat. That didn't stop him from getting caught, though. Initial reports state the animals were red kangaroos, a protected species from New Guinea. Five were dead at the time the man was arrested.

The international trade in protected and endangered species is a lucrative business. All of the animals in the incidents mentioned would have fetched large sums of money on the black market. It seems customs officials have more to look out for than drugs, bombs, and bottles of water.

The smuggler faces up to five years in prison. The surviving kangaroos have been given to an animal sanctuary.

Filed under: Asia, Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, News