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Video length: 4 min
Animals: exotic birds at the heart of trafficking
Animals: exotic birds at the heart of trafficking – (France 2)
Over time, animals became fashionable, including the famous parrot with gray plumage. For this one, a market without borders has opened up. The Journal du 20 Heures went up the chain. Reporting.
After cats and dogs, they are the most numerous pets in France. At least six million birds are to be counted. But some of these exotic birds are the subject of vast, extremely profitable international trafficking. They are captured in Africa and transported illegally in deplorable conditions. There are several legal breedings of these exotic birds in France, but a parallel black market has developed in recent years with the increase in demand.
Traffickers in Congo
Traffickers obtain their supplies 6,000 km further south, in the Congo basin. In Brazzaville, there are specialized investigators who infiltrate bird smuggling networks to dismantle them. They then intervene with the gendarmerie. Trafficking then uses international subsidiaries, exactly as with drugs. The parrots are piled up with a little food and they are hidden among other goods. The price of a single bird can reach 2,000 euros.
