A RUSSIAN man was detained at Indonesia’s Ngurah Rai airport in Bali as he was caught trying to smuggle out an orangutan in a suitcase, authorities said on Saturday (March 23).
The two-year old male orangutan appeared to have been drugged, officials said, and was detected during an X-ray security screening.
The baby animal was then taken to a safari park in Bali, where a veterinarian was seen feeding him formula milk from a bottle.
Orangutans are native to Indonesia and Malaysia, found in the wild on the islands of Sumatra and Borneo. Some of the species are endangered and all are protected.
The illegal wildlife trade is rampant in Indonesia, despite efforts by authorities to crack down on smugglers.
The Russian national, Zhestkov Andrei, who also had two live geckos and five lizards in his luggage, was scheduled to fly to Russia, but he has now been detained by police. It was not immediately clear what charges Andrei would face.
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