Kolkata, July 19: Over 10,000 turtles belonging to 43 exotic varietis, were seized by Customs Air Intelligenc Unit at Kolkata airport on Thursday from two Chennai residnts, after they arrived from Guangzhou (China) via Singapore.
Manimaran Ramasamy and Silambarasan Muthuramalingam, residents of Chennai had arrived Wednesday night at Kolkata Airport from Guangzhou via Singapore by SQ 516 flight with ten thousand forty three small turtles packed in boxes.
After arrival, both walked through the green channel with their check-in baggage and hand bags.
Their nervous behaviour aroused suspicion in the minds of AIU officials. After checking their baggage, 3559 turtles were recovered from Manimaran and rest 6484 turtles were recovered from the luggage of Muthuramalingam.
Both the persons had been arrested and investigation is on, said Navneet Kumar, deputy commissioner, Customs.
