End the ‘national embarrassment' of wildlife smuggling via KLIA

Free Malaysia Today

12-06-2025

Most of us have heard about drug mules, where people willingly or unknowingly smuggle drugs across international borders for the illicit drug trade. But how many of us know that wildlife mules operating for criminal networks also exist to smuggle endangered species to overseas buyers?
Around the world, Malaysia has gained infamy as a good source of illegal wildlife products, which raises the question: how serious are we in stopping the smuggling of wildlife via KLIA?
More importantly, how effective is the government at stopping the removal of animals from their habitats?
Hunting, poaching, trophy hunting and indiscriminate killing has placed many species on the endangered list. The tiger and rhino are hunted for specific body parts in the lucrative traditional medicine trade.
Animals traded
According to Kanitha Krishnasamy, the director for Traffic in Southeast Asia, the last quarter of 2024 saw around 10,000 live tortoises and turtles, endangered primates such as siamangs and agile gibbons, bats, iguanas and bearded dragons illicitly trafficked via flights departing Malaysia, and later seized at airports in India.
Traffic, a wildlife watchdog, claimed that Malaysian authorities seized over 74,000 animals and 194 tonnes of wildlife parts from 2014 to 2023.
The Consumers Association of Penang had also described the illegal smuggling as a 'national embarrassment', after two smugglers boarded a Malaysia Airlines flight to Chennai with wildlife concealed in a suitcase.
They passed undetected through KLIA with their haul of eight exotic species, among them endangered eastern grey gibbons, marbled polecats, a silvery lutung and a Sumatran white-bearded palm civet. When they were caught on arrival in Chennai, three baby siamang gibbons had died mid-flight.
Smugglers have no concern for the wellbeing and health of the animals. Babies forcibly removed from their mothers may die. Even adults can be traumatised by the ordeal of the flight. The animals are tied-up tightly, taped and concealed in their suitcases, without water and adequate ventilation.
Many years ago, when Ismail Sabri Yaakob was the rural and regional development minister, he revealed that he was not aware of laws to protect turtles. If the minister was ignorant of the law, what about others lower down the chain of authority in Malaysia?
Commitment of ministers
Fortunately, today's ministers are more responsible. The current environment minister, Nik Nazmi Nik Ahmad, and transport minister Loke Siew Fook have both acknowledged the severity of the smuggling activities, and intensified efforts to curb wildlife smuggling via air travel.
Now that Nik Nazmi has resigned, will his successor be as committed?
The nation has strived to protect many species such as the Malayan tiger, Sumatran rhino, Borneo pygmy elephant, orangutan, hawksbill and green turtles.
When large tracts of land are converted to plantations or other developments, and humans encroach on traditional hunting and breeding grounds of many animal species, the animals' chances of survival are limited.
Can the incoming minister and his peers work towards an equitable solution to maintain or protect the habitat of these animals? How committed is the government to gazetting more areas for animals to roam freely, without being hunted or killed by humans?
Tigers need a good forest home, with plentiful food, like wild boar and deer to live on. Destroying forests will destroy the vegetation which separates the tiger's prey.
Is our punishment a sufficient enough deterrent to wild-life smugglers? Is the law strictly enforced?
Case of the Lizard King
In 2010, wild-life trafficker and Penangite Anson Wong, aka 'the Lizard King', was caught in KLIA attempting to smuggle 95 endangered boa constrictors to Indonesia. He served only 17 months of his jail term.
Wong's case showed our lack of commitment to tackle this illegal trade. With the wildlife trade having an estimated value of several billion US dollars a year, it is inevitable that key people can easily be silenced or asked to look the other way.
Wong's international network traded in albino pythons, radiated tortoises (the second most endangered species in Madagascar), snow leopards and other protected species. His fee increased, depending on the animal's rarity.
Despite Wong's imprisonment in both the US and Mexico, as well as an embargo on his company, his wife Cheah Bing Shee continued to export wildlife to America, simply by trading under a new company name.
Malaysia is a haven for illegal activities, in which animals are hunted to the point of extinction and the environment scarred till it is barren and polluted beyond repair.
We cannot fail the animals who depend on us for their survival.
The views expressed are those of the writer and do not necessarily reflect those of FMT.