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Elephantine fraud: Rs. 250 million racket in importing elephant for Dalada Maligawa
More than Rs 261 million was sent overseas fraudulently in the guise of paying for the import of an elephant from Myanmar in 2007, whereas the market value of the animal was around Rs. 10 to 15 million, a probe committee has revealed.
The one-man committee, which probed corruption in the registration and issuing of licences of elephants, found that the elephant had been imported for the Dalada Maligawa and the person who was involved in the transaction had claimed the value was Rs 261,592,500, made an invoice for this amount and sent the money out of the country illegally, the report said. The actual cost of this elephant was only around Rs 10 to 15 million in the open market, the committee found. The report did not name the official but said it was the person who conducted the transaction on behalf of the Dalada Maligawa.
The probe was conducted by retired Supreme Court Justice Nimal Edward Dissanayake. He was appointed by Sustainable Development and Wildlife Minister Gamini Jayawickrema Perera in 2015 to report on the allegations of corruption in the registration and issuing of licences for elephants and permits under CITES (the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora). Such permits are issued by the Wildlife Conservation Department.
The report was tabled in Parliament earlier this year. The Sunday Times filed an application under the Right to Information (RTI) Act to obtain a copy from Parliament early this month.
The committee said the persons involved in the elephant import transaction has violated customs and foreign exchange regulations and was liable for criminal prosecution. It said that even belatedly legal action must be pursued against him. The committee also recommended that action be taken against other government officials who might have been involved in the transaction and steps should be taken to recover the money lost to the state by their action.
In addition to this, the committee found that several department officials had colluded in altering the registry of elephants for financial gains, with most cases reported between 2011 and 2014 when there had been an organised racket in which elephants were captured from the wild and sold to businessmen, some temples and others with political patronage.
This included preparing forged documents to give false details pertaining to the birth of the baby elephants and using blades to scratch off names from the registration book and replacing them with new names. The photographs of the elephants which were registered too were changed by pasting new ones in their place. Also names of dead elephants were deliberately kept in the registry so that they would be replaced with a new elephant forging the required process of registration.
The committee named senior department officials among those who have acted in violation of the law to allow for the illegal ownership of elephants and recommended that action be promptly taken against them. The committee recommended that the Government should draw up a national policy in dealing with elephants and enact necessary laws to protect other endangered species of animals and plants.
It was noted that there is a growing demand for tame elephants for temple and tourism-related activities such as elephant polo and that often animals were cruelly treated.The committee said that in the past, elephants were taken in ‘peraheras’ conducted by rajamaha viharayas but with the increase in the large number of Buddhist temples and devalays; there was a bigger demands for elephants to be used in peraheras.
“It is time for the Government to formulate a national policy on the use of elephants for such activities and this should consider allowing elephants to be used for processions conducted by only by rajamaha viharays that have historically done so and even in such instances to reduce the number of animals allowed to be paraded,’ the Committee said.
The committee also said the use of elephants for tourism purposes must be stopped and elephants must only be kept in open wildlife sanctuaries.
It has also said the rules for registration of elephants and the issuing of licences must be tightened so that illegal ownership of elephants can be halted.