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Forest officials in Sikkim have arrested two Russians for illegal collection of insects from the remote Yuksom forests in the Himalayan state.
Viktor Sinyaev and Oleg Amosov were arrested with about 20 kg of specimens in their possession that included 2,000 species of butterflies, moths and beetles, Belinda Wright, executive director of the Wildlife Protection Society of India, said in a statement released on Thursday.
She said four porters of the Russians, two of them Nepali nationals, were also arrested on July 30. Nationals from Russia and the central Asian republics were in the forefront of the lucrative worldwide trade in insects, the statement said.
Russia's Actual Biology Fund had informed WPSI that the two Russians were "professional criminals who have been involved in international trade in endangered species for decades".
They were said to have organised large-scale expeditions in Russia, China and Tajikistan and sold thousands of insect specimens to collectors in Germany and Japan.
WPSI said the Russian consulate in Calcutta was now pressing for their release, claiming that they were unaware their activities were illegal and at the same time arguing that it was a case of mistaken identity.
No official of the Russian embassy was available for comment.
The six accused are scheduled to appear before the chief judicial magistrate in Namchi on Friday.
The statement said in two similar seizures, 14,000 insect specimens were seized from two Germans at New Delhi's Indira Gandhi International Airport in August 1994, while 3000 butterfly specimens were seized from a Japanese national in north Bengal in July 1996. All the three accused have since absconded.
Indo-Asian News Service
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