For Third Time Ever, Convicted Orangutan Smuggler Faces Indonesian Jail Time
For the first time in Medan, North Sumatra, an orangutan trader has been prosecuted and sent to prison for trafficking in the endangered apes, reports the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS).
The trader, who was trying to sell the three-year old orangutan, received a seven-month prison sentence, which is only the third in Indonesia since orangutans were officially protected in 1924.
"Although there have been over 2,500 confiscations of illegally held orangutans in Indonesia since the early 1970’s, the first actual prosecution of an illegal orangutan owner occurred in Borneo in 2010, and now in Sumatra with this case in 2012," said WCS in a statement.
The bust was made by the Indonesian Ministry of Forestry’s Directorate-General for Forest Protection and Nature Conservation (PHKA), working with the support of WCS’s Wildlife Crime Unit and the Sumatran Orangutan Conservation Programme (SOCP).
EDIT
http://news.mongabay.com/2012/0223-orangutan_bust.html