Peruvian police apprehended a man attempting to leave the country with 320 tarantulas, 110 round beetles, and 9 bullet ants attached to his body.
The 28-year-old South Korean was stopped on November 8 at Lima's Jorge Chávez International Airport after security noticed his abdomen appeared "swollen." Peru's national forest and wildlife service, SERFOR, announced on November 13 that security personnel found plastic containers and bags of insects attached to the man's abdomen.
Upon further inspection, hundreds of insects, placed in ziplock bags, were discovered. The man was traveling from France to South Korea. Peru's environmental crime prosecutor's office has launched an investigation into the incident.
Wildlife Trafficking on the Rise The insects are believed to have been sourced from the Madre de Dios region in Peru's Amazon and are now under the authorities' supervision.
Tarantulas are considered an endangered species. Walter Silva, a wildlife expert at SERFOR, stated, "All of them were illegally taken and are part of the global illegal wildlife trade worth millions of dollars." Peru is not the only South American country combating wildlife trafficking.
In December 2021, at Colombia's El Dorado Airport, authorities intercepted a shipment of 232 tarantulas, 67 cockroaches, 9 spider eggs, and a scorpion carrying 7 baby scorpions hidden in a suitcase. In September of the same year, Colombian officials also seized a shipment of 3,500 shark fins destined for Hong Kong.
