Wildlife SOS CEO Kartick Satyanarayan linked to alleged elephant smuggling from Nepal

Madhya Pradesh's Forest department has arrested two Wildlife SOS employees, including CEO Kartick Satyanarayan, in connection with a leopard poaching case. The arrest comes after a trail of evidence linked Wildlife SOS to the alleged purchase of an elephant from Nepal. The NGO's two functionaries are currently in custody, and the investigation is ongoing.

Records from the Wildlife Crime Control Bureau reveal a significant operation in March 2022. In which three individuals were apprehended with 30 kilograms of ivory in Jaipur. The accused men were linked to a local resident.

Suraj Pal, from Mathura, who allegedly sourced a female elephant from Nepal through an Agra-based NGO. Investigators also discovered a mobile phone belonging to one of the suspects. Which contained encrypted conversations referencing Suraj Pal's elephant. With a contact named SOS.Baigo.Agra, who claimed to have kept Kartick sir informed about the transaction.

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Wildlife SOS operates bear and elephant rescue facilities in Agra and Mathura. There, Suraj Pal has worked as an elephant keeper since 2011. The NGO's CEO, Kartick Satyanarayan, has been accused of being involved in the alleged elephant smuggling case.

Devendra Singh Rathore, the case officer who was then a WCCB inspector, declined to comment on the alleged chat records involving Baiju Raj, the director of conservation at Wildlife SOS. The WCCB did not respond to requests from The Indian Express for comment.

Concerns about the NGO's rescue and anti-poaching practices have been simmering among wildlife crime investigators for years. With multiple officials expressing skepticism about the methods employed by the organization. A senior forest officer revealed that while they had gathered substantial circumstantial evidence, a conclusive proof remained elusive.

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Insiders within investigative agencies have confirmed that suspicions of poachers collecting bear cubs from the wild for Wildlife SOS date back to at least 2007. The agency's interest was piqued by recurring instances of orphaned cubs being discovered in hotel rooms.

A phenomenon that often left cases unsolved due to the unavailability of the handler at the time of the arrest.

Last month's arrest of Bhagwan Singh, a former Delhi Police officer who worked for Wildlife SOS, and his colleague Wasim in the leopard poaching case by the MP Forest department has revived questions over the seizure of a tiger skin, leopard skin and tiger skeleton in TN's Nilgiris in 2023.