Nigeria seizes 1,600 birds at Lagos airport bound for Kuwait
The cargo of live birds, which included ring-necked parakeets and yellow-fronted canaries, was intercepted by customs officials at the airport on July 31, the agency said in a statement late on Monday.
Nigeria, which has become a transit hub for trafficking in wildlife and wildlife products, is a signatory to the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES).
Parrots, songbirds and birds of prey are among the most trafficked birds for the exotic pet trade, private collections and for feathers or trophies, according to the United Nations 2024 World Wildlife Report.
Michael Awe, a customs controller at Lagos airport, said the birds were not accompanied by a CITES permit and other documents required to prove they were legally obtained.
"No illegal shipment will slip through the cracks under my watch at the airport, because the eagle eyes of my command officers are everywhere to detect and intercept," he said in the statement.
Awe said customs were investigating those responsible for the illicit cargo, adding that the birds would be handed over to the National Parks Service.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Daily Mail
34 minutes ago
- Daily Mail
Colombian army dismantles migrant smuggling ring that charged over $3,000 per person to reach the US
A transnational ring that trafficked migrants to the United States for over $3,000 per person has been dismantled, the Colombian Army revealed on Thursday. A total of 11 people, including three public servants, were arrested during a series of raids in five cities, including Barranquilla and Medellín, General Luis Cardozo said. The three officials, whose names were not released, were in charge of securing national identification cards, passports, and other travel documents that allowed them to pass through immigration control points. Soldiers rescued two migrant men from Ecuador and a woman from the Dominican Republic who were being held at one of the properties that were raided. The trafficking network reportedly contacted migrants in their home countries and sold them on the idea that they could provide 'safe' passageways to reach the United States, according to Colombian newspaper El Tiempo. Migrants were shuttled from Colombia to Central America, including Nicaragua and Panamá, and later Mexico before reaching the United States. 'This operation reaffirms our commitment to defending sovereignty, protecting the most vulnerable, and strengthening the rule of law,' Cardozo said. 'I urge citizens to be wary of misleading offers from individuals outside of official and recognized entities to carry out immigration procedures.' Law enforcement sources told Colombian newspaper El Tiempo that the criminal ring had ties to other networks in the Dominican Republic, Ecuador and Panamá. 'We are dealing with an organization that acted with sophistication, taking advantage of institutional loopholes and critical points in the identification system to operate for years,' one of the sources said. Each of the 11 defendants are facing conspiracy to commit a crime, migrant trafficking and falsification of public documents. 'Investigations continue to determine the scope of this transnational network, which affected national security and the human rights of migrants,' the Colombia Army said in a statement. The smuggling ring bust comes two months after three members of a similar network were arrested in the departments Nariño, Norte de Santander Antioquia. The group charged migrants, depending on their nationality, between $300 to $1,800 to illegally reach Panamá and other countries in Central America. A percentage of the money that they charged was then paid to the Gulf Clan cartel and Tren de Aragua gang, who ensured the smugglers that the migrants would reach their destinations in Central America before making it to the United States.
The Sun
5 hours ago
- The Sun
I was nearly trafficked from my Cyprus hotel – here's the signs you might miss, I never realised women work with them
AN INFLUENCER has urged holiday goers to be careful after she realised she was almost trafficked from the restaurant of her Cyprus hotel. Summer Fox, who boasts 764k followers on TikTok, shared the story of how she was potentially almost trafficked along with her friends, but admitted she had no idea at the time. 2 2 In the viral video, Summer said she had forgotten all about the bizarre incident until she watched a documentary, which brought all of their memories back. According to Summer, about four years ago she was staying in a posh hotel just outside of Ayia Napa with two of her friends. The trio ate at the fine dining restaurant inside the hotel a few nights in a row, and each time they noticed a girl sat on her own all glammed up. Summer recalled that the girl would make eye contact with her friends, before texting on her phone again. At the time, the friends didn't think much of it, and even joked that the girl must've fancied one of them because of how often she was looking at them. Soon after, the girl got up from her table and approached Summer and her friends to invite them to a party that night. "She was trying to convince us [to go to the party] but we said no a few times," Summer explained. Eventually, the girl, who was glammed up in a sparkly dress and a full face of makeup, went back to her table and continued to text someone. Summer admitted that they still didn't think much about the situation, other than it being "a bit awkward and weird." But then one of Summer's friends chimed in to say it could be a human trafficking plot, an idea that Summer and her other friend thought was "ridiculous" at the time. Inside romance scam target lonely singles on dating apps but what they don't know is if we die Then, when the group left the restaurant the suspicious girl was waiting for them, and urged them to come to a party with them, even telling them there was a taxi waiting outside. At this point, Summer said the girl looked pretty stressed out and annoyed as she continued to text someone. Luckily, the group didn't see the girl again and didn't think much about the encounter until Summer watched a documentary which felt eerily similar. In the documentary, Summer explained a glam woman also approached a girl in a bar, befriended her and then took her to another location, paid for all of her drinks and then drugged her and took her to a group of men who trafficked her. "When I saw that I just thought 'oh my f***ing god' that was definitely the case," Summer said. To make things even worse, Summer admitted that if her "more cautious friend" wasn't there and if the strange woman was "a better actress" she might've gone with her. After sharing her story some TikTok users agreed with Summer that it could've been a human trafficking plot she narrowly avoided. One commented: "People don't take trafficking seriously enough. It's so horrible." "This happened to me and my friends in Marbella," someone else wrote. And a third said they experienced something similar in Vegas, but didn't hang around to find out where it went. "Me and my cousin almost got trafficked in Gran Canaria! Two women approached us, we didn't realise until we got home then in clicked. So scary," someone else said. WHAT IS HUMAN TRAFFICKING? Human trafficking involves the recruitment or movement of people for exploitation by the use of threat, force, fraud, or the abuse of vulnerability. Trafficking is a crime that can occur across international borders or within a country. It often crosses multiple geographic and legal boundaries. Men, women and children may be trafficked for various purposes. They include labour sectors (for example, agriculture, food processing, manufacturing, services), domestic servitude, forced begging and petty theft and sexual exploitation. Individuals who have been trafficked are likely to experience multiple physical and mental health risks prior to, during and after their trafficking experiences, and many suffer acute and long-term health problems. Health consequences of human trafficking may include injuries, physical pain and illnesses, and sexual health problems. They may also include mental health problems such as depression, anxiety, psychosis and post-traumatic stress disorder. Women trafficked for sexual exploitation and domestic servitude report high levels of sexual violence. Men and women report high levels of symptoms of sexually transmitted infections. Source:
The Guardian
9 hours ago
- The Guardian
‘It's not a coincidence': after Ghislaine Maxwell's prison move … what next?
When Ghislaine Maxwell was transferred to a minimum security prison camp last week, despite being convicted of sex trafficking for Jeffrey Epstein, her move fueled ever-growing speculation about authorities' handling of the late financier's crimes. For many, the timing of Maxwell's sudden relocation from a Florida penitentiary to a Texas lockup known for its more campus feel and celebrity inmates was especially suspect – with two Epstein victims reportedly describing the event as a 'cover-up'. Maxwell, who was found guilty in 2021 of luring girls into Epstein's abusive world, met with the deputy attorney general, Todd Blanche, one week before the move. This sit-down with Blanche – who defended Donald Trump in criminal proceedings before working in his justice department – came amid extensive criticism of the president's botched release of Epstein investigative files. The Epstein scandal is once again roiling American politics with many especially focused on the exact nature of Trump's own social links to Epstein, who killed himself in a New York jail cell in 2019. Trump had vowed on the campaign trail to release the Epstein files, a siren song to the many Maga devotees convinced that a network of elites protected Epstein and potentially participated in his sex trafficking of teen girls. But Trump's justice department then later released a memorandum stating that there was no Epstein client list and elected not to release extensive case files. Following the backtracking, several reports highlighting Trump's past ties to Epstein stoked still more suspicion. The Wall Street Journal published an article alleging that Trump contributed a 'bawdy' letter to a birthday book for Epstein. Not long after this story was published, Trump said that he had instructed the justice department to request unsealing of grand jury transcripts in Epstein and Maxwell's criminal proceedings. The newspaper on 23 July reported that his attorney general, Pam Bondi, told him that there were multiple instances of his name in the Epstein files, potentially negating whatever benefit he hoped would come from his grand jury directive. The House oversight committee on Tuesday subpoenaed Trump's justice department for Epstein investigation files, per the Associated Press – further amplifying comment surrounding Maxwell's improved prison conditions. Several longtime defense attorneys said that Maxwell's reassignment to FPC Bryan suggested she provided useful information to the justice department officials she talked with. It's also possible that this transfer foreshadows still better conditions for Maxwell – including possible release, they speculated. 'My thinking is: if it walks like a duck, if it quacks like a duck, it's probably a duck,' said Randy Zelin, a longtime defense attorney who has taught law at Cornell Law School. 'If someone who is in a really not nice prison gets moved to a nicer prison, there is typically a reason behind that, and it's not merely because you are the next contestant on The Price Is Right or today's your lucky day. 'It would appear to me that when Ms Maxwell was questioned under what we call a 'proffer agreement' by the government, the answers that she gave were found to be credible, they were found to be truthful and they were found to be helpful,' Zelin said. 'In exchange for her being helpful and being truthful and being candid and being cooperative, she had a [benefit] conferred upon her, which is: she's in much nicer digs than she was before she provided her help to the government.' While the Bureau of Prisons has discretion over inmate placement, Zelin surmises there was probably an agreement between the correctional agency and the justice department to move Maxwell. 'It's not a coincidence, and it's either because she's helping the Department of Justice go after other people, or she has more or less exonerated the president, and she has told the Department of Justice that she knows of absolutely nothing inappropriate, untoward or gross that took place between the president and Jeffrey Epstein,' Zelin said. Asked if one should look at Maxwell's move as a one-off, Zelin said no. 'This is the beginning, not the end.' For Sam Bassett, a criminal defense attorney with Austin, Texas-based law firm Minton, Bassett, Flores & Carsey, publicity surrounding Maxwell's meeting is particularly interesting. 'One of the things that intrigued me about the whole situation with her interview is how public it was and how public her lawyer was about it. I know that when my clients cooperate, either post conviction or even before they're convicted, it's something that I like to keep under wraps,' Bassett said. He noted that one reason for privacy surrounding meetings and cooperation is because other inmates tend to look down upon those who cooperate. 'So it really flagged to me that this was kind of a political move on a lawyer's part. It puts some pressure on the president or his staff to consider a pardon or commutation at some point.' As for Maxwell's transfer, Bassett said it could stem from security reasons – such as threats at her previous prison in Florida – or her lawyers requested a move. But it was 'unusual' that a person found culpable of such a serious crime as sex trafficking would end up in a prison camp. 'Maybe it's to be a recognition for cooperation, giving her more freedom, so to speak, in a facility,' he said, noting that a move to a lower-security facility might be considered a favor to some. 'The question is: is this a foreshadowing of bigger favors to come? Neama Rahmani, founder of West Coast Trial lawyers and a former federal prosecutor, said there were multiple possibilities behind the move. 'It could be something huge or just a mere coincidence,' Rahmani said. 'The Bureau of Prisons has complete control over inmate placement, and especially when you deal with female inmates, there's not as many facilities, so the options are more limited.' Rahmani said that sex trafficking was considered a more serious crime, a crime of violence, 'so her being moved to a minimum security camp would be atypical, but it's not unheard of'. That said, the chronology continues to raise many questions. Maxwell met with Blanche, she is vying for relief from the US supreme court, and potentially will testify before Congress. 'The timing of it all leads me to believe that maybe something big is really happening, and by something big, that has to be a cooperation, right? That's really all she has to offer.' For Maxwell, relief could take the form of prosecutors requesting a resentencing, prison officials moving her to home confinement, or a pardon. A veteran legal public relations expert, who spoke under the condition of anonymity as they have clients in federal custody, surmised Maxwell 'must have provided prosecutors with information that was valuable enough post conviction for her to warrant these more favorable sentencing conditions – and they're considerably more favorable'. 'The interesting thing to outsiders is it appears that she's a cooperating witness, though, at this point, she's cooperating against a corpse, and a corpse cannot be convicted,' they said. The public relations veteran described the Maxwell-Blanche meeting as 'part one' of a process potentially resulting in better sentencing conditions. 'Part two is the public finding out, through DoJ disclosure, what information she actually provided,' they said. 'I do think that there's going to be some mechanism for them to release what she shared – and I think what she shared was indeed favorable enough to secure these lessened conditions.' Asked for comment about Maxwell's transfer, a senior administration official said: 'Any false assertion this individual was given preferential treatment is absurd. Prisoners are routinely moved in some instances due to death threats, and significant safety and danger concerns.' Trump's justice department pointed to Blanche's tweet about his meeting with Maxwell, in which he said they 'will share additional information about what we learned at the appropriate time'. Neither the Bureau of Prisons nor Maxwell's lawyer immediately responded to requests for comment.
