South African police seize more than 100 live scorpions stashed in luggage – National

Police in South Africa arrested a 28-year-old man after they discovered he was trafficking 150 venomous scorpions through Cape Town airport, police said in a statement on Saturday.

The suspect had concealed the poisonous arachnids, which were alive, between his clothing packed inside his suitcase, according to police.

The man was detained on Friday after police shared his description and apprehended him at the airport.

“He was arrested under the Nature and Environmental Ordinance Act, being in possession of a wild animal,” the statement said, without naming the man or disclosing where his final destination was.

He is expected to appear in court on Monday, it added.

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An image of the scorpions shared by authorities shows them individually wrapped in plastic. The scorpions have since been handed over to a “haven” for safekeeping, police said.

This is not the only instance of wildlife trafficking in South Africa. Last year, six people were arrested there in connection with an international rhino horn trafficking network allegedly worth $14 million, the BBC reported.

Wild animal trafficking can also have devastating impacts on the ecosystem, and efforts to combat it are often centred on maintaining the country’s rich biodiversity.

According to a report by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime on wildlife trafficking in South Africa, “syndicates constantly step up their brutal methods to get their hands on our wildlife to satisfy foreign market demands, while also corrupting some government officials and processes aimed at securing our wildlife resources.”

“The criminal industry involved in wildlife trafficking runs organized multibillion-dollar operations worldwide, and their criminal enterprises by themselves will not stop without serious and sustained intervention,” it continued.

Rhinoceros horn trafficking increased in South Africa by more than 210 per cent between 2010 and 2016, the report found and mirrored an increase in domestic rhino poachings.

The issue is not limited to South Africa. Last June, customs officials in India stopped and arrested an airline passenger travelling from Thailand after they said he was caught smuggling dozens of venomous snakes and other small reptiles into the busy city of Mumbai.

The poisonous serpents, which included 44 Indonesian pit vipers, were “concealed in checked-in baggage,” Mumbai customs agents said in a post at the time.

Officials said the passenger also stashed three spider-tailed horned vipers — venomous snakes that primarily target small prey such as birds — and five Asian leaf turtles.

In February last year, agents in Mumbai stopped a smuggler carrying five siamang gibbons, a species of small, endangered apes native to Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand.

A 2024 report on wildlife trafficking by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime found that the “global scope and scale of wildlife crime remain substantial.”

Seizures from 2015 to 2021 indicate “an illegal trade in 162 countries and territories affecting around 4,000 plant and animal species,” of which 3,250 are listed in the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora.

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