Three Chinese among 12 sent to jail for bid to smuggle out turtles

Pakistan: A judicial magistrate on Saturday remanded three Chinese nationals and nine Pakistanis to the prison for 14 days for allegedly smuggling freshwater, black pond turtles.

The court also allowed the Sindh Wildlife Department to immediately release the confiscated turtles into their habitat.

The accused, including three Chinese nationals who are real brothers, were arrested by the Sindh Wildlife Department on Friday night from two different locations in Karachi when a team of officials, led-by Deputy Sanctuary Warden Adnan Hamid Khan, raided a bungalow in DHA Phase VI and confiscated 780 freshwater, black pond turtles from their possession.

“All the 12 accused were produced before Judicial Magistrate II in the Malir Courts. We sought their custody for investigation but the court sent them to jail for 14 days. We also managed to get a release order for the confiscated turtles, which would be released to their habitat in the Indus River near Guddu and Sukkur Barrages,” SWLD official Adnan Hamid Khan told The News.

He said the arrested Chinese nationals, namely Chaolei Kang, Ziaoyo Kang and Sheng Kang, were real brothers and had collected the freshwater black pond turtles for smuggling out to Malaysia, where they were used for preparation of traditional Chinese soups and traditional medicinal uses.