Man Arrested For Trying To Smuggle An Orangutan In His Luggage

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Man Gets Caught Trying To Smuggle An Orangutan Into His Country

A Russian man was arrested at an airport in Bali after attempting to smuggle a drugged baby orangutan in his luggage out of the air hub and back to his home country. The tourist is now facing anywhere up to $7,000 in fines and a five year stay in prison.

This past Friday night, Andrei Zhestkov was detained at Ngurah Rai International Airport before boarding his flight back to Russia, according to reports from The Independent. Officials found a 2-year-old orangutan fast asleep in a basket–evidently because he was drugged with allergy pills–after a routine security screening.

The 27-year-old reportedly told officials that he had been given the protected primate by his friend, who purchased the animal for $3,000 at a street market. He explained that his friend is also from Russia and had apparently convinced him he could take the orangutan home to keep as a pet, according to reports from The Guardian.

But that wasn’t all the wildlife this man had stored in his suitcase, authorities also discovered two geckos and five lizards in the man’s luggage. For all of these offenses, the would-be smuggler faces up to five years in prison and $7,000 in fines.

“[Zhestkov] seemed prepared, like he was transporting a baby,” Bali conservation official I Ketut Catur Marbawa said of the scene, revealing that the Russian man had also packed baby formula and blankets.

The baby orangutan is now being cared for by the Bali Natural Resources Conservation Agency, BBC reports. As noted by the World Wildlife Foundation, orangutans are a critically endangered species with a few more than 100,000 known to be remaining across the globe.