Nepalese trader confesses to selling 30 leopard skins in 2007

03/07/2007 00:00:00 A Nepali national has been arrested with a leopard skin on the Nepal-India border. ‘Forestwatch’ received information through its informer network about the trader who took advantage of the porous Indo Nepal border. The animals were sourced in India before smuggling the skins into Nepal, from where they would be sold to dealers in Uttar Pradesh who then sell them in international markets.

The operation resulted in the trader being arrested in a raw-leather market on the Indo-Nepal border where the trader had hidden the leopard skin inside a bundle of 100 buffalo skins.

The authorities dais ‘On interrogation, the trader has revealed that he was killing the animals from forests in both India and Nepal but he kept the material in Nepal. In 2007 alone, the accused has confessed to selling over 30 skins to different traders of Lucknow, Kanpur, Hardoi and Delhi.’