MP: International Wildlife Trafficker Yangchen Lachungpa Arrested In Sikkim

The court granted a five-day-request of her to the state tiger strike force (STSF).

Forty-four-year-old Lachungpa, a native of Tibet who spread her wildlife trafficking network across India, Nepal, Tibet and China, was produced before the special court in Narmadapuram which gave her 5-day remand to the STSF, additional Principal Chief Conservator of Forest (APCCF), Madhya Pradesh, L Krishnamurthi said.

STSF along with the Wildlife Crime Control Bureau (WCCB), New Delhi, raided the ‘fugitive’s’ hideout at Lachung in Sikkim on December two and arrested her, an officer of the STSF said.

Said to be the kingpin of a global wildlife trafficking network, Yengchen had been avoiding arrest by the police for the last ten years by changing her hideouts frequently between Delhi and Sikkim, leading the Union government to approach the Interop to issue a Red Corner notice for her arrest, a senior forest officer here said.

The international wildlife trafficking network was busted in July 2015 by the STSF by arresting 31 people.

Bag loads of tiger bones and pangolin scales, believed to have been trafficked from the Satpura Tiger Reserve (STR) in Narmadapuram district, were seized from them.

All the 31 accused were subsequently convicted in the court.

A probe into the network later led to the disclosure that Yengchen headed the cartel of the global wildlife trafficking gang, the forest officer said.

She was arrested in 2017, but let off after she got anticipatory bail from the court.

Her anticipatory bail was however rejected by the Madhya Pradesh high court in 2019.

She had been absconding since then.

She was produced in a court in Gangtok in Sikkim after her arrest and the STSF got a transit remand of her from the court on December three.

She was brought to Madhya Pradesh on Saturday for production in the special court in Narmadapuram.