After 10-yr chase, wildlife sleuths nab the ‘ghost’

BHOPAL: In the snowbound soundlessness of Lachung, successful northbound Sikkim, 43-year-old wildlife trafficker Yangchen Lachungpa, wanted by Interpol, yet ran retired of mountains.For 10 years, agencies crossed India and overseas had hunted for Yangchen — a pistillate who, investigators said, moved similar a ghost, slipping crossed borders, abandoning harmless houses hours up of raids, and allegedly built trafficking corridors that linked Madhya Pradesh’s tiger reserves to Nepal, Tibet and China.But connected Dec 2, successful a tiny Himalayan colony conscionable a fewer km from the India-China border, the pursuit ended successful a mode adjacent seasoned officers described arsenic “like watching a movie play retired successful existent time”.As radios died and torches dimmed successful the freezing darkness, the MP State Tiger Strike Force (STSF) and Wildlife Crime Control Bureau (WCCB) squad recovered itself nether jurisdiction of the Dzumsa, Lachung’s centuries-old self-governing council.

Villagers reportedly blocked the lone exit, and elected headmen demanded documents. And the officers — carrying warrants for 1 of the world’s astir elusive wildlife traffickers — were forced to support each procedural measurement earlier being allowed to detain Yangchen.At the centre of this standoff sat the pistillate they had chased for a decennary — Yangchen Lachungpa, besides the erstwhile woman of 44-year-old Jaiy Tamang, arrested from Delhi for his alleged relation successful smuggling pangolin scales.

Tamang’s confession years earlier had archetypal exposed Yangchen arsenic a captious designer of the smuggling chain.Officers said Yangchen allegedly tried to destruct 2 cellphones and a coded diary containing names, routes and hawala references earlier the apprehension could beryllium completed. “It was portion standoff, portion colony trial, portion planetary transgression bust. We had an Interpol fugitive sitting successful beforehand of us, but first, we had to person a 400-year-old assembly that Indian instrumentality applied,” said an investigator.Her eventual apprehension came lone aft months of method surveillance, decoy movements and night-time encirclements crossed high-altitude terrain. The cognition was monitored intimately by Madhya Pradesh govt, officials said, fixed the seriousness of the tiger-poaching case.Yangchen’s apprehension marks 1 of India’s astir important breakthroughs successful wildlife enforcement — and 1 of the uncommon arrests executed pursuing an Interpol Red Notice, issued connected Oct 2, 2025, astatine India’s request.

It allowed instrumentality enforcement successful 195 countries to detain her if found.Originally from Tibet, Yangchen allegedly built trafficking corridors that funnelled tiger parts, pangolin scales, reddish sanders, shatoosh wool and Cordyceps to planetary buyers. She often moved betwixt Delhi and distant Sikkim hideouts, often vanishing conscionable earlier surveillance teams closed in.The relation of this syndicate surfaced repeatedly successful planetary seizures.

In 2013, Nepal Police intercepted 5 tiger skins and 7 sacks of bones en way to Tibet; DNA investigating aboriginal matched 1 fell to Pench tigress T-13. In 2015, Ethiopian authorities confiscated 8 tiger skins believed to person originated successful cardinal India. Both cases, investigators said, bore the hallmark of the alleged web Yangchen helped create.The lawsuit that yet cornered her began successful July 2015, erstwhile MP authorities seized tiger bones, skin, pangolin scales and bony lipid extract from Satpura Tiger Reserve.

STSF uncovered what officials called a “highly structured multinational trafficking chain.” As galore arsenic 31 accused were arrested, and 27 were convicted by a Narmadapuram tribunal successful 2022. But Yangchen, the pistillate believed to beryllium the missing nexus — the 1 connecting village-level poachers to buyers beyond the Himalayas — remained retired of reach.She was arrested erstwhile successful Sept 2017, but went connected the tally aft obtaining interim bail.

In 2019, her anticipatory bail was rejected, and she disappeared again, prompting authorities to question planetary intervention.After her apprehension successful Lachung, Yangchen was transported to Gangtok for aesculapian introspection and produced successful tribunal connected Dec 3, wherever MP authorities secured transit remand. Sikkim Police provided captious enactment successful what officers called “one of the astir culturally delicate and operationally unsafe extractions successful caller memory”.Payments successful the web were allegedly routed done Kathmandu, Siliguri and borderline villages, portion suspected wildlife stockpiles were maintained successful Satpura, Pench, Betul and Tamia forests. The coded diary recovered successful the raid is expected to uncover fiscal backers, planetary contacts and the deeper operation of the trafficking chain.A elder enforcement serviceman said the breakthrough “finally gives sleuths a accidental to exposure the apical tier of planetary wildlife contraband markets”, adding that much arrests crossed states — and perchance crossed borders — are likely.