In a bid to prevent a wildlife smuggler of West Bengal from claiming ownership of three chimpanzees and four marmosets (long-tailed South American monkeys) recovered from him, the Enforcement Directorate (ED) has, for the first time, attached the endangered animals under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA).

The wild animals have been kept in Alipore Zoological Garden in Kolkata. ED sources said smuggler Supradip Guha will be probed under the money laundering case.

The ED said the first-of-its-kind attachment under the PMLA “enabled” zoo authorities to retain the animals as the smuggler was trying to take them away on forged papers.

An attachment by the ED renders an asset out of bounds for its owner and it can be further confiscated by the agency after the Adjudicating Authority of the PMLA, a quasi-judicial body, approves the attachment within 180 days of seizure.

The ED said the State police had booked Guha for “forgery and using forged documents as genuine as he was found using a forged permission letter to illegally transport the wildlife birds purportedly issued by the Principal Chief Conservator of Forests, Wildlife and Chief Wildlife Warden, West Bengal.”

The ED took over the case under PMLA based on this police FIR. The agency said its probe found Guha was “running an organised wildlife smuggling racket”.

He is a clever criminal and recorded contradictory statements before the customs authorities and wildlife authorities to evade action from both the departments, it alleged.

Guha also obtained fake certificates regarding birth of the three chimpanzees in India, the ED said.

“This attachment has enabled the zoo authorities to keep the animals with them. The action by the ED will deter dealers against indulging in illegal trade of animals and wildlife,” it said.

The three chimpanzees have become a major point of attraction for the visitors of the Alipore zoological garden in Kolkata and hence, a source of revenue too, the agency said.

It said the seven animals are valued at Rs 81 lakh, with each chimpanzee worth Rs 25 lakh and a marmoset, a species of small long-tailed South American monkeys, about Rs 1.5 lakh.