How did five baby orangutans end up abandoned in India?

Huddled and frightened, adjusting to an alien environment, five newly orphaned babies lay inexplicably in the forest’s undergrowth.

With shaggy, reddish-orange fur, wide eyes and long limbs, they were unlike any other animal found in this corner of eastern India. They were soon surrounded by a crowd of about 1,000 bewildered villagers, who alerted forest officials patrolling nearby.

When officers arrived, they were stunned. The animals were baby orangutans: critically endangered great apes; some of the world’s most intelligent animals, and a species prized by private collectors.

They belong thousands of kilometers away, in the Southeast Asian rainforests of Borneo and Sumatra. Yet here they were in India’s Odisha state, all under 18 months old, separated from their mothers, and then abandoned.

Pratik Prakash Indalkar, a forest officer from Balasore, a coastal city in eastern Odisha, told CNN his staff were not sure how to handle the find, which he characterized as “very surprising.”

Their discovery gripped India. For days, the plight of the Odisha quintet dominated headlines and primetime broadcasts. Yet for conservationists, their ordeal is a grim reminder of a far larger reality: a $20 billion illicit trade that tears critically endangered animals from their habitats and traffics them with ruthless efficiency.

Indonesia’s government says the available evidence suggests the babies originated in Sumatra, the massive island in the west of the archipelago nation.

Pratik Indalkar/Odisha Forest Department

Since their discovery, CNN has spent weeks investigating the shadowy, brutal trade in which endangered animals are poached and moved through networks of brokers across borders and seas. Drawing on conversations with wildlife sellers, social media posts and interviews with nearly a dozen experts, including environmentalists, researchers and a former trafficker, we chart the likely journey that took these orangutans from Indonesia to India.

It is a journey that almost certainly began with violence. To capture an infant orangutan, poachers typically must first kill its mother, who will fiercely defend her young. By the time these babies reached India, they had likely endured weeks of fear, hunger and dehydration. They showed little interest in climbing nearby trees – unusual behavior for these arboreal animals, who spend their lives in the forest canopy and rarely descend to the ground.

Authorities rushed in food and water before transporting the babies to a nearby government office. Video from the rescue shows them being carefully carried away before making the nearly 400-kilometer (250-mile) trip to Nandankanan Zoo.

There, they remain in quarantine, far from the forests where they were born and the mothers they lost. And their story is just one of many in the illegal wildlife trafficking industry.

Deep in the humid greenery of a Sumatran rainforest, serenaded by birdsong and the jungle’s endless thrum, a baby orangutan clings to its mother.

Their bond, like all maternal bonds in primates, is incredibly difficult to break. Orangutans are among nature’s most devoted mothers, rarely letting babies out of reach, and raising their young for up to nine years. Young orangutans learn the essentials of survival from their mothers: how to forage, swing through the canopy and avoid danger.

Several experts say this is why poachers in the illegal wildlife trade often kill the mother first.

“To me, it’s almost certain they were taken from the wild,” said Lionel Hachemin, global director of the Wildlife Crime Program at the International Fund for Animal Welfare. “Obtaining five orangutan infants of the same age would be extraordinarily difficult, even for the world’s best-resourced breeding facilities. It would require years of coordinated effort, an ideal breeding population, and at least 20 adult females.”

Conservationists who have spent decades tracking the trade describe the process as ruthless and predictable.

“If you find one baby orangutan, it means one mother orangutan has died,” said Binur D. Naibaho, director of Sustainable Landscape at the Orangutan Information Centre (OIC), a non-governmental organization based in North Sumatra.

Naibaho described how some villagers in Sumatra are paid up to 15 million Indonesian rupiah ($846) to poach a baby orangutan. “The local people will hunt the orangutan, kill the mother and take the baby and give to the agent to go to the black market,” he said.

The mother’s protective instinct becomes her death sentence.

“There is no way that the mother would leave her baby,” according to Femke den Haas, co-founder and director of Jakarta Animal Aid Network (JAAN) Indonesia. “She will fight for her baby till the end.”

Once the mother is dead, poachers wrench the infant from her chest.

“The baby will still be clinging onto the mother, holding on really tight, screaming.”

In moments, the baby becomes an orphan and loses everything it knows: the rhythm of its mother’s heartbeat, her protection, and the only bond it has in the world.

Then comes a terrifying journey into captivity.

It could have taken anywhere from one to three weeks to convey the babies from source to India, according to Hachemin.

“Our experience is that syndicates try to minimize transit time for live animals such as great apes because the mortality rate makes delays expensive, thus impacting profits,” he said.

The conditions they were transported in may never be known. But testimony, videos and photographs shared with CNN by conservationists offer a window into the suffering these animals often endure during trafficking.

“You’re being placed in a dark box, moved to different locations,” den Haas said, adding that many don’t make it because of the harsh conditions.

Posing as a potential buyer several years ago, conservation photojournalist Paul Hilton recalled being led deep into a rural Sumatran community after a tip-off of an orangutan for sale. The animal’s treatment laid bare the cruelty of the illegal wildlife trade.

“Every time it started to move, they slapped it on the head,” Hilton said. “It’s suffering and getting a little bit of rice every day. Maybe a bit of fruit now and again.” The orangutan was rescued and now lives in a rehabilitation center.

Other footage shared with CNN by JAAN Indonesia shows similarly grim scenes. In one video, a young orangutan can be seen crouching in the corner of a small, dark crate, its frightened eyes wide open.

Den Haas said the infant was one of two hidden beneath bananas and luggage on a passenger bus in southern Sumatra. They were discovered by JAAN’s wildlife detection dog.

“They were extremely scared, they were less than a year (old), and they were in a very bad condition,” den Haas said.

“The trauma of that can last for years. Some never truly recover.”

Providing a faint ray of hope in this otherwise bleak start to life, the five baby orangutans have been settling into their new surroundings in Odisha at the Nandankanan Zoo.

Veterinarians are closely monitoring their health, tracking their temperature, and providing daily updates on their condition. For comfort, the orphans have been given orangutan plush toys.

They haven’t been given names yet, but the babies have started recognizing their carers. The slightly older babies are “climbing and swinging,” said the zoo’s deputy director, Pradeep Mirase. The younger ones keep clinging to each other.

Rescuers who transported the animals to the zoo moved at a painstaking pace, carefully navigating every bump and turn to avoid stressing or injuring them, said Indalkar from the forest department in Odisha.

“We had to give them cushioning and something to play with, because they would get stressed without it. We had staff inside the vehicle, and insulated ice boxes on hand, since we weren’t sure about ventilation,” he said.

“We also had (straw) for them, to make them feel more at home.”

Orangutans are classified as “critically endangered” on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. An estimated 104,000 Bornean orangutans, 13,000 Sumatran orangutans, and just 800 Tapanuli orangutans remain in the wild, according to the World Wildlife Fund.

Decades of deforestation have devastated vast areas of orangutan habitat, pushing the animals into smaller pockets, increasing their vulnerability to poachers. Currently, raging wildfires in West Kalimantan, Borneo, further threaten their survival.

International trade of Sumatran orangutans is prohibited under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), and the species is protected under Indonesian law.

Yet, trafficking these apes is a criminal enterprise that spans multiple countries, fueled by a lucrative black-market demand for exotic pets, experts say; demand from people who admire the animals enough to covet one, but are paradoxically callous to the suffering their purchase inflicts.

CNN spoke to a former wildlife trafficker, who described the trade as a sophisticated machine; a syndicate that involves poachers, brokers, sellers and smugglers.

He said he spent years collecting exotic animals as a hobby before realizing around 2012 that he could make money from the trade.

His business started with baby gibbons and other primates, Komodo dragons, exotic birds and wild cats – animals he would usually buy directly from poachers.

He agreed to speak with CNN on condition of anonymity, to avoid retribution for speaking out. We’re calling him Budi.

Budi said profit was his primary motivation. “It’s easy money,” he said. “You give me the money, I give you the animals. Then that’s it. The deal is over.”

Budi said he was once offered an orangutan from a poacher for 30 million rupiah ($1,668), which he could then go on to sell for about 10 times that on the international market. He ultimately turned it down, because it is “really hard work to keep them alive.”

He explained that wildlife trafficking relies on a network of actors, each playing a distinct role. After poachers or hunters capture an animal, they sell it to intermediaries like Budi, who then resell it at a profit. The supply chain also includes transporters or couriers responsible for moving the animals, and specialist marketers who connect sellers with potential buyers. In recent years, some poachers and traders have increasingly turned to middlemen to broker transactions and facilitate sales.

“Every seller has their own hunters or poachers, and every seller has their own specialized marketers,” Budi said. “Every seller tries to hide their identity. Mostly they do not have a link with another seller. They just interact by the middleman if they have a transaction.”

Budi said he gave little thought to the animals’ ordeal, or to the suffering they endured after being poached from the wild and trafficked. “Sometimes some of the animals died, some of them got sick,” he said. “We just get rid of the sick and the diseased ones.”

Budi did most of his selling on social media platforms and said he’d be concerned about being caught after every transaction. “You’re doing the illegal activity, so every time you are getting concerned.”

But ultimately, he said, wildlife trafficking is not a dangerous industry to be a part of, citing poor law enforcement and punishment.

In 2024, Indonesia revised its anti-wildlife trafficking law to bring in stricter fines and longer jail sentences. Individuals can now be fined as much as $5 billion rupiah ($280,000) and jailed up to 15 years.

But Budi said many traffickers spend about a year and a half in prison and return to the illegal trade after their release . CNN has contacted Indonesia’s Ministry of Forestry and its national police force for a response.

Budi stopped trafficking animals in 2019, after a friend warned him that he could go to jail, and he now works as an informant on wildlife crime for a non-governmental organization.

“It’s like you just paid the sin, and it’s really good just working for the future of the animals and the nature itself.”

Based on known trafficking routes, experts say the baby orangutans’ journey to India likely started in Indonesia’s Aceh province, at Sumatra’s northern tip.

From there, they likely boarded small fishing vessels for the journey to Thailand, one of the region’s most important wildlife trafficking hubs, according to multiple conservationists and researchers familiar with the route.

Investigators and conservation groups say this is often the stage where animals are moved between trafficking networks before continuing toward their final destination.

If that destination is India, the trail then likely moves overland into Myanmar, a segment of the route that is significantly murkier, according to Hachemin.

Wildlife is believed to travel through a series of border crossings linking Thailand and Myanmar, including the Mae Sot-Myawaddy and Tachileik-Mae Sai corridors, both of which have long been associated with all manner of illicit trafficking.

However, five years of civil war in Myanmar has altered trafficking patterns. With some roads blocked or heavily controlled, traffickers are increasingly believed to be using secondary roads and remote jungle trails, making movements harder to track.

The final leg of the journey takes the animals across the India-Myanmar border. Experts from the Wildlife Trust of India (WTI) identified two principal Indian entry points: the northeastern states of Manipur and Mizoram.

Open-source data gathered by the WTI and shared with CNN showed 23 cases of illegal wildlife trafficking-related seizures in India’s northeast states between 2015 and 2026. The most frequently seized commodities, it said, were pangolin scales and live pangolins, followed by live exotic non-native mammals, including primates. The data indicates there may be more such cases.

“My suspicion is that (the five orangutans) must have come through the northeastern land border which is porous and which is also the preferred border,” said Jose Louies, WTI’s chief executive. “You have to look at the low-risk border. So, if I am a smuggler, I will be using the northeastern border to bring the animals in.”

They could have also traveled via Bangladesh, according to several experts.

Dwi Adhiasto, an Indonesian wildlife conservationist and criminologist, said he has been detecting the smuggling of wildlife, including primates, into Mizoram since around 2015.

The state is a “key transit point,” said Adhiasto, senior technical adviser with the Science for Endangered and Trafficked Species (SCENTS) Foundation, an Indonesian non-profit that works to combat endangered wildlife trafficking and poaching. He added it “serves as a heavy end point or transit point for wildlife from Indonesia.”

While the industry’s trafficking routes are kept obscured, its advertising is done in the open. Primates of all kinds – including endangered species like slow lorises and gibbons – are advertised blatantly in public Facebook groups. Photos and videos show them caged, leashed or clothed, or cuddling children to highlight their gentle temperament.

CNN spoke to several sellers advertising animals online in lengthy conversations over several days, who claimed they could ship them internationally using regular regional air couriers like J&T Express.

“There won’t be any issues with customs,” one Indonesia-based suspected trafficker told CNN when asked about shipping a monkey to Mumbai. “If you place your order now, you can receive the baby monkey and pick it up at the airport within seven hour (sic),” he says, explaining that a flight attendant will hand over the animal.

The traffickers appear to know the animals well, commenting on their preferences and personalities. “It’s a bit fierce… like a tiger cub,” another trafficker says about a jungle cat.

The animals are said to be caught from the wild. In videos sent by the traffickers, a group of small monkeys stare wide-eyed at the camera as they cling to one another. Others huddle in the corner of a cage.

Asked whether the animals will need any certificates to fly across the continent, one user advertising wildlife simply responds that the animal is “illegal.”

Facebook owner Meta’s website says it prohibits content that “attempts to buy, sell, trade, donate or gift or asks for endangered species or their parts.” The company told CNN it will get the Facebook groups investigated.

CNN has reached out to J&T for comment. Its website says it prohibits the delivery of dead or living animals.

We may never know the exact route the five orangutans took on their multinational odyssey, but some clues have emerged about what happened once they reached India.

CCTV footage from Digha, a coastal town in West Bengal bordering Odisha, captured what’s believed to be a handoff involving two vehicles, including a black SUV and a white car, according to Indian media reports citing investigators.

Authorities are examining whether one of those vehicles transported the animals before they were ultimately abandoned in Odisha’s forests, the reports said.

Authorities are also looking into a Digha hotel and its owners to determine whether the animals were kept there. Three individuals were temporarily detained, according to local reports.

Multiple officials contacted by CNN declined to comment on the ongoing investigation.

According to IFAW’s Hachemin, these are the hallmarks of a multi-layered trafficking network designed to obscure the identities of key players.

“This pattern suggests sanitized handoffs,” said Hachemin, adding that the objective is to create distance between suppliers, transporters, and eventual buyers.

This all raises the question of why the orangutans were abandoned, alone on the forest ground. Did traffickers hastily ditch their extremely valuable cargo, maybe after being spooked by nearby patrols? Were the animals dropped with the intention that some other criminal operatives would come and pick them up for the next leg of their journey? Or were they, for some reason, intended to be found by the authorities?

Some experts told CNN they believe India was likely meant to serve as the destination, rather than a transit hub. Based on previous patterns, they said, the babies were likely intended to become part of someone’s private pet collection or placed in an unlicensed zoo.

Fahmi Prayoga, minister counsellor at Indonesia’s embassy in New Delhi, said a delegation from Indonesia is expected to visit India to carry out a DNA and morphology test on the animals. He said authorities in both countries are cooperating to ensure the infants are sent to their rightful home, and urged the two to work together to combat illegal wildlife trafficking.

“We have to do this together,” he said.

CNN has contacted India’s Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change, and the foreign ministry, for a response.

For now, the five young orangutans are safe, and may yet live happier, healthier lives than they faced at their intended destination. For the people now caring for them, the road ahead will be long. The traumatized orphans must slowly be taught the survival skills they should be learning from their mothers.

For Indalkar, the forest officer from Balasore, protecting the orangutans is a responsibility that weighs heavily on every handler.

“This is a very big asset,” he said. “Five babies like this, it’s like an international treasure.”

CNN’s Mutie Aryanti and Zoe Low contributed reporting.

五个新近成为孤儿的婴儿蜷缩在一起，惊恐万分，难以适应陌生的环境，莫名其妙地躺在森林的灌木丛中。

它们有着蓬松的红橙色皮毛、大大的眼睛和修长的四肢，与印度东部这片区域发现的任何其他动物都截然不同。很快，大约1000名惊愕的村民围住了它们，并通知了附近巡逻的森林官员。

警员到达现场时，都惊呆了。这些动物竟然是幼年猩猩：极度濒危的大型猿类；世界上最聪明的动物之一，也是私人收藏家梦寐以求的物种。

它们原本生活在数千公里之外的东南亚婆罗洲和苏门答腊的热带雨林中。然而，它们却出现在印度奥里萨邦，都不到18个月大，与母亲分离后遭到遗弃。

来自奥里萨邦东部沿海城市巴拉索尔的森林官员普拉蒂克·普拉卡什·因达尔卡尔告诉 CNN，他的工作人员不知道如何处理这一发现，他形容这一发现“非常令人惊讶”。

它们的发现震惊了印度。连日来，这五只来自奥里萨邦的动物的遭遇占据了各大媒体的头条和黄金时段的电视节目。然而，对于自然保护主义者来说，它们的遭遇却残酷地提醒着人们一个更为严峻的现实：价值200亿美元的非法贸易将极度濒危的动物从它们的栖息地夺走，并以冷酷无情的效率进行贩卖。

印尼政府表示，现有证据表明这些婴儿来自苏门答腊岛，这是这个群岛国家西部的一个大岛。

Pratik Indalkar/奥里萨邦林业部门

自发现这些猩猩以来，CNN已花费数周时间调查这种隐秘而残酷的非法交易，濒危动物在这种交易中遭到偷猎，并通过中间商网络跨越国界和海洋进行贩运。通过与野生动物卖家的对话、社交媒体帖子以及对近十位专家（包括环保人士、研究人员和一位前走私贩子）的采访，我们梳理了这些猩猩从印度尼西亚到印度的可能旅程。

这段旅程几乎可以肯定始于暴力。为了捕捉幼年猩猩，偷猎者通常必须先杀死它们的母亲，因为母猩猩会拼死保护幼崽。当这些幼崽抵达印度时，它们可能已经忍受了数周的恐惧、饥饿和脱水。它们对攀爬附近的树木几乎毫无兴趣——对于这些生活在树冠层、很少下到地面的树栖动物来说，这是一种反常的行为。

救援人员迅速送去食物和水，然后将幼崽们转移到附近的政府办公室。救援视频显示，他们小心翼翼地将它们抱走，然后踏上近400公里（250英里）的旅程，最终抵达南丹卡南动物园。

它们被隔离在那里，远离它们出生的森林和它们失去的母亲。而它们的遭遇只是非法野生动物贩运产业中众多悲剧中的一个。

在苏门答腊雨林潮湿葱郁的深处，鸟鸣声和丛林无休止的喧嚣声交织在一起，一只小猩猩紧紧地依偎在妈妈身边。

和所有灵长类动物的母子关系一样，猩猩与母亲之间的纽带极其牢固，难以割舍。猩猩是自然界最尽职尽责的母亲之一，它们很少让幼崽离开自己的视线，而且会抚养幼崽长达九年。幼年猩猩从母亲那里学习生存的基本技能：如何觅食、在树冠间穿梭以及躲避危险。

多位专家表示，这就是为什么非法野生动物贸易中的偷猎者经常先杀死母兽的原因。

“在我看来，几乎可以肯定它们是从野外捕获的，”国际爱护动物基金会野生动物犯罪项目全球主任莱昂内尔·哈切明说。“即使对于世界上资源最丰富的繁殖机构来说，获得五只年龄相仿的猩猩幼崽也是极其困难的。这需要多年的协调努力、理想的繁殖种群，以及至少20只成年雌性猩猩。”

数十年来一直追踪这种贸易的环保人士将这一过程描述为残酷且可预测的。

“如果你发现一只小猩猩，那就意味着一只母猩猩死了，”位于北苏门答腊的非政府组织猩猩信息中心 (OIC) 可持续景观主任 Binur D. Naibaho 说。

奈巴霍描述了苏门答腊岛一些村民如何因偷猎幼年猩猩而获得高达1500万印尼盾（约合846美元）的报酬。“当地人会猎杀猩猩，杀死母猩猩，然后带走幼崽，交给中间人到黑市出售，”他说。

母亲的保护本能最终却成了她的死刑判决。

“母犬绝不会抛弃幼崽，”雅加达动物援助网络（JAAN）印尼分会联合创始人兼主任费姆克·登·哈斯表示，“她会战斗到最后一刻，保护她的孩子。”

母鹿死后，偷猎者会从母鹿胸口强行取出幼鹿。

“婴儿还会紧紧地抱着母亲，哭喊不止。”

转眼间，婴儿就成了孤儿，失去了所有熟悉的一切：母亲的心跳节奏、母亲的保护，以及在这个世界上唯一的纽带。

接下来是一段令人毛骨悚然的囚禁之旅。

据哈切明称，将这些婴儿从产地运送到印度可能需要一到三周的时间。

他说：“我们的经验是，贩运集团会尽量缩短大型猿类等活体动物的运输时间，因为死亡率高，延误成本高昂，会影响利润。”

它们被运输时的具体情况或许永远不得而知。但环保人士向CNN提供的证词、视频和照片，让我们得以窥见这些动物在贩运过程中常常遭受的苦难。

“你会被放在一个黑暗的箱子里，然后被转移到不同的地方，”丹·哈斯说，并补充说，由于恶劣的条件，许多人无法幸存。

几年前，自然保护摄影记者保罗·希尔顿假扮成潜在买家，接到线报称苏门答腊岛有一只猩猩待售，于是他被带到了一个偏远的乡村社区。这只猩猩遭受的待遇，彻底揭露了非法野生动物贸易的残酷。

“它一动，他们就打它的头，”希尔顿说。“它很痛苦，每天只能吃到一点米饭，偶尔能吃到一点水果。” 这只猩猩获救后，现在生活在一家康复中心。

JAAN Indonesia向CNN提供的其他视频也展现了类似的惨状。其中一段视频显示，一只幼年猩猩​​蜷缩在一个狭小黑暗的箱子角落里，惊恐地睁大着眼睛。

丹·哈斯表示，这名婴儿是藏在苏门答腊南部一辆客车上香蕉和行李下的两名婴儿之一。他们是由JAAN的野生动物搜寻犬发现的。

“他们非常害怕，他们还不到一岁，而且情况非常糟糕，”登·哈斯说。

“那种创伤可能会持续数年。有些人甚至永远无法真正康复。”

在原本黯淡的生命开端，五只小猩猩带来了一丝希望，它们在奥里萨邦的南丹卡南动物园已经适应了新的环境。

兽医们正在密切监测它们的健康状况，测量体温，并每日更新它们的最新情况。为了让这些孤儿猩猩感到舒适，兽医们还给它们准备了猩猩毛绒玩具。

它们还没有名字，但小家伙们已经开始认得饲养员了。动物园副园长普拉迪普·米拉塞说，稍大一些的小家伙们会“爬上爬下、荡来荡去”，而更小的那些则总是黏在一起。

奥里萨邦森林部门的因达尔卡尔表示，将这些动物运送到动物园的救援人员小心翼翼地行进，谨慎地避开每一个颠簸和转弯，以避免给它们造成压力或伤害。

“我们必须给它们提供缓冲垫和玩具，否则它们会感到焦虑。我们安排了工作人员在车内，并准备了保温冰盒，因为我们不确定车内的通风情况，”他说。

“我们还为他们准备了（稻草），让他们感觉更像在家一样。”

根据世界自然保护联盟濒危物种红色名录，猩猩被列为“极危”物种。据世界自然基金会估计，目前野外仅存约10.4万只婆罗洲猩猩、1.3万只苏门答腊猩猩和800只塔帕努里猩猩。

数十年的森林砍伐摧毁了大片猩猩栖息地，迫使它们挤入更小的生存空间，也增加了它们遭受偷猎的风险。目前，婆罗洲西加里曼丹肆虐的森林大火进一步威胁着它们的生存。

根据《濒危野生动植物种国际贸易公约》（CITES），苏门答腊猩猩的国际贸易是被禁止的，该物种也受到印度尼西亚法律的保护。

然而，专家表示，贩卖这些猿类是一项跨越多个国家的犯罪活动，其背后是黑市对异宠的丰厚需求；这种需求来自那些足够欣赏这些动物并渴望拥有一只的人，但矛盾的是，他们对购买行为给动物带来的痛苦却漠不关心。

CNN采访了一位前野生动物走私贩子，他将这种交易描述为一个复杂的机器；一个涉及偷猎者、经纪人、卖家和走私者的犯罪集团。

他说，他多年来一直把收集珍稀动物作为爱好，直到 2012 年左右才意识到可以通过这种交易赚钱。

他的生意是从幼年长臂猿和其他灵长类动物、科莫多巨蜥、珍稀鸟类和野生猫科动物开始的——这些动物他通常直接从偷猎者手中购买。

他同意在匿名的前提下接受CNN采访，以避免因公开谈论此事而遭到报复。我们暂且称他为布迪。

布迪说，盈利是他的主要动机。“这钱来得太容易了，”他说。“你给我钱，我把牲畜给你。然后就结束了。交易完成了。”

布迪说，曾有偷猎者向他提出以3000万印尼盾（约合1668美元）的价格出售一只猩猩，他可以在国际市场上以大约10倍的价格卖掉这只猩猩。但他最终拒绝了，因为“保护它们的生命真的非常困难”。

他解释说，野生动物走私依赖于一个由众多参与者组成的网络，每个参与者都扮演着不同的角色。偷猎者或猎人捕获动物后，会将其卖给像布迪这样的中间商，中间商再从中牟利。供应链还包括负责运输动物的运输员或信使，以及将卖家与潜在买家联系起来的专业营销人员。近年来，一些偷猎者和走私者越来越多地利用中间商来促成交易和促进销售。

布迪说：“每个卖家都有自己的猎人或偷猎者，每个卖家也有自己的专门营销人员。每个卖家都试图隐藏自己的身份。他们大多与其他卖家没有联系。如果有交易，他们只是通过中间人进行接触。”

布迪说，他很少考虑这些动物的遭遇，也很少考虑它们从野外被偷猎和贩卖后所遭受的痛苦。“有时候有些动物死了，有些生病了，”他说，“我们只是把生病的和有病的都处理掉。”

布迪主要通过社交媒体平台进行销售，他说每次交易后都会担心被抓。“你在做非法活动，所以每次都会提心吊胆。”

但他最终表示，野生动物走私并不是一个危险的行业，理由是执法不力、惩罚力度不足。

2024年，印尼修订了打击野生动物贩运法，加大了罚款力度，延长了刑期。现在，个人最高可被处以50亿印尼盾（约合28万美元）的罚款，并被判处最高15年的监禁。

但布迪表示，许多贩运者在监狱服刑一年半左右后，出狱后又重操旧业。CNN已联系印尼林业部和国家警察部队寻求回应。

2019 年，一位朋友警告布迪，他可能会因此入狱，于是布迪停止了贩卖动物。现在，他为一家非政府组织担任野生动物犯罪方面的线人。

“这就像你偿还了罪孽，为动物和大自然的未来而努力真的非常好。”

根据已知的贩运路线，专家表示，这些小猩猩前往印度的旅程很可能是从印度尼西亚苏门答腊岛北端的亚齐省开始的。

据多位熟悉该路线的自然保护主义者和研究人员称，他们很可能从那里登上小型渔船前往泰国，泰国是该地区最重要的野生动物走私中心之一。

调查人员和环保组织表示，这通常是动物在被运往最终目的地之前，在贩运网络之间转移的阶段。

哈希明表示，如果目的地是印度，那么这条路线很可能会经陆路进入缅甸，而这一段路线的情况要复杂得多。

人们认为野生动物会通过连接泰国和缅甸的一系列边境口岸迁徙，包括湄索-苗瓦底走廊和大其力-湄赛走廊，这两个走廊长期以来都与各种非法贩运活动有关。

然而，缅甸长达五年的内战改变了人口贩运的模式。由于一些道路被封锁或受到严格管控，贩运者越来越多地使用次要道路和偏远的丛林小径，这使得追踪贩运活动更加困难。

旅程的最后一段路程是动物们穿越印度-缅甸边境。印度野生动物信托基金会（WTI）的专家确定了两个主要的印度入境点：东北部的曼尼普尔邦和米佐拉姆邦。

世界野生动物信托基金（WTI）收集并与美国有线电视新闻网（CNN）分享的开源数据显示，2015年至2026年间，印度东北部各邦共查获23起与非法野生动物贩运相关的案件。数据显示，查获最多的货物是穿山甲鳞片和活体穿山甲，其次是活体外来哺乳动物，包括灵长类动物。数据表明，此类案件可能不止于此。

“我怀疑（这五只猩猩）一定是经由东北部陆地边界进入的，这条边界漏洞百出，也是走私者最常用的路线，”野生动物信托基金会（WTI）首席执行官何塞·路易斯说道。“你必须选择风险较低的边界。所以，如果我是个走私犯，我也会利用东北部边界把动物运进来。”

多位专家认为，他们也可能途经孟加拉国。

印度尼西亚野生动物保护主义者兼犯罪学家德维·阿迪亚斯托表示，他从 2015 年左右就开始侦查向米佐拉姆邦走私野生动物（包括灵长类动物）的行为。

“该州是一个重要的中转站，”印尼非营利组织“濒危和贩运物种科学基金会”（SCENTS基金会）的高级技术顾问阿迪亚斯托说道。该基金会致力于打击濒危野生动物的贩运和偷猎。他补充说，该州“是印尼野生动物的重要终点站或中转站”。

尽管该行业的非法贩运路线被刻意隐瞒，但其广告宣传却明目张胆。各种灵长类动物——包括濒危物种如懒猴和长臂猿——都在公开的Facebook群组中被肆无忌惮地宣传。照片和视频中，它们被关在笼子里、拴着狗绳或穿着衣服，或者与孩子们亲密互动，以凸显其温顺的性情。

CNN 与几位在网上刊登动物广告的卖家进行了数天的长时间交谈，他们声称可以使用 J&T Express 等常规区域航空快递公司将动物运送到国际上。

一名印尼籍的疑似走私贩子在接受CNN采访时表示：“海关不会有任何问题。”当被问及如何将猴子运往孟买时，他说道：“如果您现在下单，您可以在七小时内（原文如此）在机场领取这只小猴子。”他还解释说，空乘人员会将动物交给您。

贩运者似乎对这些动物很了解，他们会评论它们的喜好和性格。“它有点凶猛……像只小老虎，”另一名贩运者这样评价一只丛林猫。

据称这些动物是从野外捕获的。在贩运者发送的视频中，一群小猴子紧紧地抱在一起，睁大眼睛盯着镜头。另一些猴子则挤在笼子的角落里。

当被问及这些动物是否需要任何证书才能飞越大陆时，一位野生动物广告用户简单地回答说，这种动物是“非法的”。

Facebook母公司Meta的网站声明，禁止发布“试图买卖、交易、捐赠或赠送濒危物种或其任何部分，或索要濒危物种或其任何部分”的内容。该公司告诉CNN，他们将对Facebook上的相关群组展开调查。

CNN已联系J&T公司寻求置评。该公司网站称，禁止运送死动物或活动物。

我们可能永远无法得知这五只猩猩在跨国旅程中的确切路线，但关于它们到达印度后发生的事情，已经出现了一些线索。

据印度媒体援引调查人员的消息报道，西孟加拉邦与奥里萨邦接壤的沿海城镇迪加的监控录像拍下了疑似两辆车（一辆黑色SUV和一辆白色轿车）交接的画面。

报道称，有关部门正在调查这些车辆中是否有一辆曾运送过这些动物，之后它们最终被遗弃在奥里萨邦的森林里。

当局还在调查迪加一家酒店及其业主，以确定这些动物是否被饲养在那里。据当地报道，三人已被暂时拘留。

CNN联系的多位官员均拒绝就正在进行的调查发表评论。

国际爱护动物基金会的哈切明表示，这些都是多层贩运网络的典型特征，旨在掩盖关键参与者的身份。

“这种模式表明交接过程经过了消毒处理，”Hachemin说道，并补充说，其目的是在供应商、运输商和最终买家之间创造距离。

这一切都引出了一个问题：为什么这些猩猩会被遗弃在森林地面上？是走私贩子匆忙丢弃了这些极其珍贵的货物，或许是因为附近巡逻队的惊扰？还是他们故意丢弃这些动物，希望其他犯罪分子会来接走它们，继续他们的下一段旅程？又或者，出于某种原因，他们希望这些猩猩被当局发现？

一些专家告诉CNN，他们认为印​​度很可能是这些幼崽的目的地，而非中转站。他们表示，根据以往的模式，这些幼崽很可能是被送往某人的私人宠物收藏，或是被安置在无证动物园。

印尼驻新德里大使馆公使衔参赞法赫米·普拉约加表示，印尼代表团预计将访问印度，对这些动物进行DNA和形态学检测。他表示，两国当局正在合作，确保这些幼崽被送回它们真正的家园，并敦促两国携手打击非法野生动物贩运。

他说：“我们必须共同努力。”

CNN已联系印度环境、森林和气候变化部以及外交部，寻求回应。

目前，这五只小猩猩暂时安全，或许能比它们原本的目的地过上更幸福、更健康的生活。对于照顾它们的人们来说，未来的路还很长。这些饱受创伤的孤儿必须慢慢地学习它们本应从母亲那里学到的生存技能。

对于来自巴拉索尔的森林官员因达尔卡来说，保护猩猩是每个管理员都肩负的重任。

“这是一笔非常宝贵的财富，”他说。“五个这样的婴儿，简直就是国际瑰宝。”

CNN的Mutie Aryanti和Zoe Low对此报道亦有贡献。