Indonesia’s battle against wildlife crime has taken another grim turn. Police in Aceh have arrested a 36-year-old man accused of trafficking tiger organs and bones from a Sumatran tiger—a species already hanging by a thread. The arrest once again exposes how trafficking networks keep operating across Sumatra while enforcement remains reactive and fragmented.
The Special Crime Subdirectorate IV of the Aceh Police arrested the suspect, identified as SB, in Nagan Raya on October 3. Authorities say SB is part of an organized network dealing in Sumatran tiger skins, claws, and internal organs. This latest case follows an earlier investigation in Southeast Aceh in July, when officers intercepted a planned sale but failed to catch the suspect in person. Only now—months later—was SB finally located and detained, according to a report by Tempo Indonesia.
Tiger organs
According to the Aceh Police Directorate, evidence seized earlier this year included one piece of tiger skin, 16 claws, two fangs, a finger bone, two pelvic bones, a joint bone, and a skull. Each of these body parts can fetch high prices in the black market, especially the tiger organs, which remain in demand for illegal traditional-medicine trade. The persistence of such markets shows how law-enforcement success is undermined by consumer myths and weak deterrence.
Zulhir Destrian, head of the Aceh Criminal Investigation Directorate, said the arrest followed months of intelligence tracing. SB now faces prosecution under the revised Conservation of Natural Resources Law No. 32/2024, which strengthens penalties for trafficking endangered species. Yet even the threat of long prison terms has not stopped traders. Across Sumatra, police continue to seize tiger parts every few weeks, but almost never dismantle the financial or cross-border structures behind them.
This reflects a broader systemic failure. Indonesia’s anti-trafficking framework focuses on local actors—the hunters and middlemen—while the syndicates that buy and export tiger organs to markets in China, Vietnam, and Malaysia stay untouched.
A network that adapts faster than enforcement
The arrest demonstrates that tiger body-part trafficking has become both decentralized and resilient. Networks move silently across district lines, using motorbikes and encrypted messaging apps to arrange trades in minutes. Confiscations rarely lead to follow-the-money investigations, and prosecutions often stop at village level. In this case, authorities have not yet disclosed whether SB’s buyers or accomplices have been identified.
Despite Aceh’s frequent wildlife arrests, coordination between provincial and national agencies remains thin. The Special Crime unit acts under resource constraints—limited forensic capacity, few translators for digital data, and minimal field budgets. When traffickers are caught, convictions seldom exceed minimal sentences. The result is impunity disguised as enforcement.
The persistence of such crimes makes clear that Indonesia’s tiger crisis is not about individual greed alone—it’s about structural neglect. Real deterrence requires specialized environmental courts, financial-crime tracing, and customs cooperation to track shipments of dried tiger organs and skins leaving Sumatra’s ports.
Beyond arrest statistics
Public statements like “wildlife protection is our collective responsibility” ring hollow without transparent data and community engagement. Enforcement can’t succeed if forest-edge communities are treated as suspects rather than partners. Many villagers who report poaching are still vulnerable to intimidation from middlemen or even corrupt local officials.
Reform must extend to digital intelligence and international cooperation. Indonesia’s Law No. 32/2024 gives prosecutors the tools; what’s missing is consistent political will to apply them. Each successful seizure should trigger asset investigations and cross-border alerts—not a single press release and silence.
Linking arrests like SB’s to the broader fight against tiger poaching is essential. Without systemic reform, every case remains an isolated victory in a losing war.
A species running out of time
The Sumatran tiger’s population is estimated at fewer than 400 individuals. Each carcass stripped for tiger organs pushes the species closer to functional extinction. While Indonesia’s officials promise stronger enforcement, trafficking data tell another story: prosecutions are reactive, intelligence sharing is slow, and consumer demand remains unchecked.
If Indonesia wants to preserve its last wild tigers, it must move beyond symbolic arrests and build a permanent, intelligence-driven task force linking Aceh, Riau, Jambi, and Lampung. Only then can arrests lead to dismantled networks rather than headlines.
Until that happens, every confiscated claw or bone will stand as evidence not only of crime—but of a country that still lets its wild icons die for profit.
Source: Tempo Indonesia
Photo: Tempo Indonesia
