Instagram Based Wildlife Poaching Racket Busted

Hyderabad: A wildlife poaching racket with a team of three youth trapping and killing wild animals and promoting their ‘wares’ through Instagram reels, was cracked on Wednesday with the arrest of a youth who on his Instagram account would post short videos of their ‘captures’ and create a buzz and receive inquiries about meat of the animals trapped by him and his two friends.

Acting on a tip-off, forest officials of Khammam district caught Tammishetty Vamshi, who the officials said operated the Instagram account, and that they expect to catch the other two soon. After booking a case, Vamshi was produced before a Khammam Court on Wednesday evening.

Khammam district forest officer Siddharth Vikram Singh said the youth were in the habit of catching jungle cats, Palm Civets, and Monitor Lizards, and Hares and selling the meat of the animals. “While the monitor lizard meat was being sold as an aphrodisiac, we found that there is a strong local market for jungle cat and palm civet meat. We suspect that there may be more persons involved and are in the process of identifying how many more are involved in this racket,” he said.

Siddharth Vikram Singh said the tip-off came from an NGO in Karimnagar district and with the help of the police, the location of the accused was traced and he was taken into custody. “During questioning, Vamshi confessed that he poaches wild animals regularly, and posts videos on Instagram. He also uses a trained dog in hunting the wild animals. He and his team operated in the Kusumanchi Range,” he said.

The case is being investigated by V. Manjula, the Khammam forest divisional officer, and Kusumanchi forest range officer P. Srinivas Rao, deputy range officer P. Suresh, forest section officers P. Daneil and Kishore.