Tuesday, March 19

New scandal in the international business of macaques destined for laboratories

On November 16, the Department of Justice of the Government of the United States announced the arrest of eight people of Cambodian nationality, including two officials of the Ministry of Forestry, as well as directors and owners of breeding farms in this country of macaques for laboratories, for his alleged involvement in a long-tailed macaque trafficking and laundering network.

Since the year 2000, Cambodia is one of the exporting countries of laboratory macaques. Its main customers are the United States, Japan and South Korea, but it has also supplied farms in neighboring Vietnam. Since China stopped exporting these macaques in 2020, as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, it has become one of the main exporters. Macaque breeding farms began to be established in this country in 2002, and it currently has six of these facilities throughout its territory, including some adjacent to national parks that are the natural habitat of long-tailed macaques. It was not until 2010 that Cambodia banned the trade in wild-caught macaques, allowing only the sale of macaques bred on said farms. But investigations since then by NGOs, researchers and scientists have repeatedly shown that there continued to be an unsustainable trade in wild-caught monkeys.

The latest of these investigations has led to the arrest in the United States of eight people allegedly involved in the laundering of these wild-caught macaques exported to the United States as farmed. According to the investigation carried out, the two detained officers, Kry Masphal and Keo Omaliss, work on behalf of Cambodia CITES: Omaliss also being Director General of the Forestry Administration and Masphal, Deputy Director of the Department of Wildlife and Biodiversity of the Forestry Administration. Both would provide CITES permits for the export of macaques in exchange for money. The bleaching of these primates was done through the facilities of Vanny Bio Research.

Also arrested in this operation were the founder and director of the Vanny group’s operations in Cambodia (Vanny Bio Research) and Hong Kong (Vanny Resources Holdings), James Man Sang Lau; the CEO of Vanny Resources Holding, Dickson Lau; his vice principal, Sunny Chang; financial officer, Sarah Yeung; Vanny Bio Research Hing CEO Ip Chung; and public relations and export director Raphael Cheung Man. According to investigators, up to 3,000 macaques have been exported to the United States from the Vanny facility since December 2017 with papers forged by officials.

But this is the latest in a long line of scandals and irregularities, from hunting in the wild to abuses at breeding farms and laboratories, as well as animal deaths during long transportswhich have led the long-tailed monkeys, in less than a decade, to go from being abundant in their habitats to being at this moment, according to the IUCN itself, in danger of extinction.

The fact that Masphal was detained at the New York airport when he was going as his country’s representative to the CITES summit in Panama (where international trade in flora and fauna is discussed, and where, despite its new endangered status, not only was it not implemented, but greater control and restrictions on trade in long-tailed macaques were not even discussed), is representative of the institutional and global corruption and apathy that is leading to this species on the verge of extinction.



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