The Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) announced today a successful raid in Jakarta by Indonesian authorities that resulted in the arrest of a suspect found with hundreds of illegal wildlife items, including elephant ivory, sun bear parts, tiger bones, skins, and teeth, and more.
The suspect was trading from an art shop and using the internet to advertise illegal wildlife parts to domestic and foreign buyers. Parts appear to have been sourced from across Indonesia and were being shipped using courier services.
The internet is a growing medium for the sale of illegal wildlife parts and is proliferating in Indonesia, which now has over 30 million internet users and has the world’s second largest Facebook following.