The
BBC says the three men were nabbed at the airport trying to board a flight that was headed to Dubai. One of the men had a red slender loris, a small rare monkey, hidden in a pouch in his briefs. Security guards
say they made the discovery after noticing a bulge in the man's underwear when he was being frisked. The
Bangkok Post says red slender lorises measure about 7 inches (17 cm).
After finding out what was hidden inside, security officials discovered a second loris had been thrown into a garbage can. A senior security official
says, "They had abandoned him as they were unable to carry him."
The BBC says one official says the animals condition is, "okay, but deteriorating," and they have been transferred to the Delhi-based organisation People For Animals, to care for the animals.
Red slender lorises are
native to India and Southeast Asia. They are nocturnal and carnivorous and live in tropical forest regions. But they have become popular exotic pets in recent years and experts
fear they are becoming extinct. In fact, conservationists say the animals have been virtually wiped out in Indonesia because of the trade. And they say poachers usually pull out the primates teeth with pliers, because of their toxic bite, making it impossible to return them to the wild.
Customs agents are now trying to figure out the exact origin of the lorises that were found. The men had
arrived in Delhi on a flight from Bangkok and were continuing on to Dubai.
Just last week, three men were
arrested at Mumbai's airport trying to smuggle rare star-turtles onto a flight, hidden in their underwear.
