BHUBANESWAR: A two-member team from Wildlife Crime Control Bureau (WCCB) arrived in Odisha on Thursday to interrogate Afzal Beg who has emerged as a major ivory smuggler of the eastern region.
Currently in the remand of the Crime Branch of state police, Beg was not only wanted by Odisha in connection with five cases of elephant poaching last year, the Jharkhand Forest and Environment Department too sought his custody for a series of jumbo killings.
The Divisional Forest Officer of Chainbasa had sent in a request to the Mayurbhanj police in this regard.
The WCCB, sources said, was looking into the trail of Beg’s wildlife crimes across eastern Indian states. A native of Dundu village in Mayurbhanj’s Rairangpur block, Beg was the pivot that ran poaching
and smuggling rackets simultaneously. He was arrested from Odisha-Jharkhand borders by the CB on December 29.
“We believe he had a major role in organising poaching units, collection of ivory and sale of tusks in the illegal market,” Additional Director General of Police, Crime Branch, B K Sharma said.
Although he was remanded in the CB custody for three days, the investigating agency will seek an extension of his remand for five days.
Beg’s clientele was mostly in Kolkata and other parts of West Bengal and that is what both CB and WCCB are looking to crack. The mastermind used to fund poachers, provide them logistic support and pick up ivory at `15,000 per kg rate.
“The network of his buyers is key to breaking the syndicate of which he was the central point,” a senior Forest Department official said.
When Jospeh Lugun, a poaching kingpin was arrested earlier this year for the Sambalpur poachings, all his calls were traced to Beg. He had confessed to selling the tusks to this seasoned offender whose family was
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