Illegal gecko trade duping investors

An illegal trade of tokay geckos for their apparent medicinal value is duping investors and threatening the existence of this lizard species in Bangladesh.
“Different websites are offering exorbitant prices for this creature based on rumours that geckos are used in medicine to cure AIDS and cancer,” Rapid Action Battalion (Rab) Executive Magistrate HM Anwar Pasha told The Daily Star recently.
“However, World Health Organisation reports refuted such medicinal value of geckos,” added Pasha, who has been conducting drives against the illegal trade for the last two years.
But the rumours led to a frenzied search for geckos. Those who capture these lizards from the wild can only get around Tk 500 to Tk 1,000 for each animal and the price increases as the reptile changes hands, he added.
“So far we found seven tiers of traders and the price reaches a six-digit figure at the last tier,” said Pasha.
According to Wildlife (Protection and Safety) Act 2012, trading and selling wild geckos is a punishable crime. Since 2012, 33 people were arrested and 116 geckos were rescued in eight drives conducted by Rab.
Mohd Hamidur Rahman Sheikh, 45, arrested alongside his four-member gang and with 50 geckos in his possession from the capital's Rampura on June 11, admitted losing Tk 70 lakh.
Quoting Hamidur, Pasha said, “He invested the money at different times in the trade but failed to sell the reptiles because they never met the criteria specified in the websites uploaded by the supposed international buyers.”
One such website, claiming to be an Indonesian buyer, asks sellers to book the transaction if they have geckos matching their specification. For Bangladeshi sellers, the booking price is US $46,000, which, the website claims, will be paid even before the gecko is shown to the buyer.
The same website offers US $ 11 million per gram for a gecko, weighing between 40 and 499 grammes.
The tokay gecko, a small, insect-eating and often very noisy reptile akin to the house lizard, is not an endangered species in Bangladesh, said Dr Tapan Kumar Biswas, conservator of forests, Wild-Life Circle, Bangladesh Forest Department
But capturing excessive numbers from some places, such as the Chittagong Hill Tracts, is threatening their existence, he told The Daily Star recently.