New Delhi: A raid conducted by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) last evening resulted in a seizure of eight shahtoosh shawls from a south Delhi company.

Shahtoosh shawls are made from the wool of the Tibetan antelope, an endangered species accorded the highest protection in the country by the Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972 and the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES). Despite an international ban on shahtoosh trade, some illegal trade still goes on.

The Wildlife Trust of India (WTI) and its partner in India, the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW) have been running a campaign against shahtoosh that is aimed at working to root out the illegal trade which is now more rampant in some of the northern states in India.

The company called Naqash Arts had exported shahtoosh shawls to Switzerland earlier this year and were seized by Swiss authorities from a retail store in Switzerland. An IFAW investigation on wildlife trade on the Internet also revealed shahtoosh for sale on the Internet earlier this year.

Ashok Kumar, Vice Chairman of WTI said, “During my visit to Geneva for SC54, I saw these shawls and got the address of the company in India. The shawls had a plastic tassel attached which read “Shahtoosh”. We now needed a good foreign decoy customer to nab the culprits red-handed since we had already exhausted other tricks in the book.”

Enter the ideal decoy, in the form of Grace Gabriel, Dy. Director of IFAW. Together with the CBI, an operation was planned and executed in just one day. Wildlife Officers from the Directorate of Wildlife Preservation (Northern Region) assisted the CBI in identification of the shawls to be genuine shahtoosh.

Subsequent search of the office of Naqash Arts, revealed export documents of shahtoosh shawls to Oman and Kuwait. The documents described the shawls to be shahtoosh by name. The owner of the firm and his son who was active in the export trade were arrested and will be tried in CBI special court.

The son had made a statement to Grace that he was to go to Switzerland with shahtoosh shawls next week. However, his Swiss trip will have to wait indefinitely since his passport has now been impounded.

Pix credit: Pix 1-Amlan Dutta / WTI

Pix 2 / WTI archives