The cardboard box said fragile because, in theory, it contained crystal glasses. However, what was inside the package, not very large, were 15 tarantulas, nine of them protected and potentially dangerous species. The Civil Guard has located them at the Madrid Barajas airport, from where they were going to travel to Seville, each one packed into a rudimentary tupperware plastic, the takeaway kind. The Civil Guard is investigating the author of the shipment, the owner of a pet store in a town in Toledo, near Madrid, for a crime against flora and fauna for trafficking these specimens without the required documentation and permits. The buyer of the spiders was a private individual from Seville.
On April 30, this package that declared it contained crystal glasses seemed “somewhat strange” to the security teams at the Madrid airport, according to a spokesperson for the Civil Guard. Its origin was a parcel company in the Madrid town of San Fernando de Henares and its final destination was Seville, a private individual.
The agents, from the Fiscal and Border Unit of the Adolfo Suárez Madrid-Barajas airport, passed the suspicious package through the scanner and observed that what was inside were stacked plastic containers. When they opened it, they discovered the 15 hairy spiders in 15 plastic containers. “At first glance, one of them had orange legs and the agents already knew that it was a protected species,” says the spokesperson.
The case was handed over to the competent body in these cases, the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora, better known as CITES, to analyze the specimens. CITES determined that nine of the 15 tarantulas are included as a protected species in the International Catalog of Endangered Specieswhich regulates international cross-border trafficking or movement of threatened or endangered species.
These nine spiders belong to the species Brachypelma Hamorii (red-legged tarantula), Brachypelma boehmei (Mexican orange-legged tarantula), Brachypelm Emilia (Mexican red-legged tarantula), Poecilotheria regalis (Indian ornate tarantula), Aphonopelma pallidum (gray Mexican tarantula) and Tlitocatl albopilosus (chinada tarantula), all of them included in the catalog and considered potentially dangerous. Its bite is not fatal, but it does cause redness, pain and swelling and can cause serious reactions.
The animals were taken to two centers in the Community of Madrid that have appropriate facilities for their stay, one of them the Lugo Marcelle Nature Center, where the non-venomous spiders went, and the other to the Aldea del Fresno Safari, a zoo outdoors specialized “in possession and care of poisonous animals.”
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After locating the sender of the package, he was investigated for his alleged involvement in a crime against Flora and Fauna. The operation culminated 10 days ago with the location, by the Nature Protection Service (Seprona), of the point of origin from which the arachnids were distributed: a pet store in a town in Toledo near Madrid.
In the search of the center there were more surprises, since Seprona agents seized 15 more animals: four lizards (two Australian geckos and two thick-tailed geckos), three black vipers, seven Asian vipers and a green python. All of them are potentially dangerous and the owner of the store could not provide documentation to prove their legal origin.
“These animals can be sold, but legally, for which they require the processing of a CITES document, a type of DNI,” concludes the spokesperson. The Civil Guard has not estimated the sale price of these specimens, but for example the one with orange legs can be purchased for 80 euros and the Mexican one with red legs, for 45.
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