Sacked cop used rented home for trafficking wildlife species

He took house on rent under pretext of using it for ornamental fish culture

- SV KRISHNA CHAITANYA & SIDDHARTH PRABHAKAR

I THE two-storey house at Lakshmipuram in Kolathur, which Chennai Customs and state wildlife officials sealed after seizing 647 native Indian scheduled wildlife species on Sunday, has been rented for the past nine months by dismissed police constable S Ravikumar (41), identified by investigators as a lynchpin of a multi-crore international wildlife trafficking network.

While one set of investigators confirmed Ravikumar's involvement in this racket, forest department sources said his name has not been included in the case they have registered.

When TNIE visited the house on Tuesday, neighbours said in November last year, Ravikumar and his wife had taken the 600-square-foot house for a monthly rent of 17,000 from Padmanabhan, a lawyer living on the same lane, to run an ornamental fish culture business, for which Kolathur is famous for.