...and lands in jail. A trafficker and her colleague held on Sunday in a joint raid

Dealing in endangered species is always big business. Animal welfare organisation 'People For Animals' in concurrence with the Delhi police, busted a gang of two people supplying rare sea shells at Sadar Bazar in north Delhi. The consignment was worth more than a crore.


Costly affair: The police recovered 1,150 shells from the shop and
7,800 shells from the factory in Delhi

Komal Rastogi (31) and Kuldeep (24) are now in Tihar jail. Police have filled a case under the Wildlife Protection Act (39/44/49B). Both of them were apparently in the construction material business at Bari market in Sadar Bazar. But as was later revealed, that was just a front for their illegal racket of marketing rare shells.

Interestingly, the duo dealt only with foreign customers since they could afford these costly shells in large quantities. According to the raiding president of People For Animals, "We have busted several gangs like this in the recent past. In north India, Haridwar is the main hub where these illegal shells are shipped in large quantities from south India and then supplied to different parts of the country. This was the second time that we recovered a large quantity of illegal shells from Delhi."

"We were tipped off by the animal welfare organisation and had been tracing both of them for the last one month. We planned and sent two people in their shop as decoy customers and gave them an advance for the shells. To get more money they revealed details of their factory, which they used for storing the illegal shells at Bara Tuti in Sadar Bazaar itself. That was their mistake and they landed in our trap" said a police official.

Police have recovered 1,150 shells from the shop and 7,800 shells from the factory, which include five rare varieties-- Spiral Tudida, Great Green Turban, Glory of India, Trumpet Triton, Cigeon Conch and Top Shell.