5 min learnNew DelhiUp to date: Aug 16, 2026 11:16 AM IST
Investigators have discovered {that a} seasoned wildlife-contraband dealer and his affiliate, arrested by the Madhya Pradesh State Tiger Strike Pressure (STSF) earlier this week over an alleged big-cat poaching operation, had been on the payroll of a outstanding Delhi-based wildlife conservation NGO, The Indian Specific has learnt.
In custody, the dealer, Bhagwan Singh alias Salim, and his confederate Wasim are mentioned to have instructed investigators they had been appearing on the directions of Wildlife SOS CEO Kartick Satyanarayan. The STSF has since served Satyanarayan a discover to seem earlier than the Investigating Officer in Shivpuri on August 17.
Investigators say they’ve gathered “substantial digital proof” tying him to an operation they imagine was run “for private beneficial properties.” They’re analyzing whether or not Satyanarayan “organised poaching and staged seizures” to construct his and the NGO’s anti-poaching profile, and whether or not he was additionally concerned in wildlife trafficking.
“After each key accused, who had been on the payroll of Wildlife SOS, named Kartick Satyanarayan, he has been requested to seem earlier than the Investigating Officer. We’re coordinating with the WCCB (Wildlife Crime Management Bureau)…we are going to do every thing it takes to safe our forests,” Madhya Pradesh chief wildlife warden Sameeta Rajoura instructed The Indian Specific.
Satyanarayan didn’t reply to an electronic mail, messages and cellphone calls; Wildlife SOS co-founder and secretary Geeta Seshamani was additionally unavailable for remark.
The case traces again to July 23, when 4 poachers had been arrested on the Gwalior-Agra freeway with 10 leopard skins. On the time, NGO Wildlife SOS credited months of surveillance by its personal Forest Watch anti-poaching unit for the bust. However as a result of the pelts had originated in Madhya Pradesh, the STSF opened a parallel probe and that investigation is what has now turned the narrative on its head.
Area investigations within the Shivpuri and Morena forests turned up a number of websites the place leopard stays had been buried; these have been despatched to the Wildlife Institute of India in Dehradun for DNA matching towards the skins seized on July 23. Investigators additionally recovered three leg-hold traps, and it was this path that led them to Bhagwan Singh and, by way of him, to Wasim. The MP STSF picked up Bhagwan Singh on August 11 and Wasim on August 13.
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“Our groups additionally discovered three leg-hold traps and made some arrests which led them to the prime accused Bhagwan Singh, a wildlife dealer with a protracted historical past, who turned out to be on the payroll of this NGO for at the least 5 years. This led to the arrest of Wasim, one other Wildlife SOS worker,” a senior Madhya Pradesh forest official mentioned.
In line with sources conversant in the investigation, Singh and his accomplices scouted forest areas round Shivpuri and Morena in a Wildlife SOS automobile — now in STSF custody — and distributed leg-hold traps sourced from Haryana to handpicked native hunters. It was Singh, sources mentioned, who organized for 4 poachers to hold the ten leopard skins to a decoy purchaser close to a dhaba on the Gwalior-Agra freeway, the place UP police made the arrests.
“This community began poaching leopards within the Shivpuri space final yr. If it was certainly an undercover operation to nab poachers, why did they proceed till 10 leopards had been killed? They’ve to clarify why they created such a requirement for skins and distributed leg-hold traps to be deployed in a delicate panorama the place we even have cheetahs,” a Forest division supply mentioned. Bhopal sources added that the division has not dominated out tigers additionally being caught in the identical trapping community, regardless of the Shivpuri panorama’s solely sporadic tiger presence.
A retired forest official steered the alleged scheme matches a well-recognized trafficking playbook. “This might nicely observe the classical mannequin the place traffickers commerce the high-value materials to make revenue whereas getting their rivals arrested with some low-value items to earn brownie factors — on this case, entice large donors and grants.” The identical official pointed to Wildlife SOS’s aggressive fundraising for rescued bear cubs at Bhopal’s Van Vihar zoo, beneath an MoU with the state that is because of expire subsequent month.
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Singh’s arrest can also be reviving scrutiny of an earlier case. A former Delhi Police officer who was dismissed from the pressure, Singh, with Wasim, was reportedly current in Tamil Nadu’s Sathyamangalam forest space in 2023, when a tiger pores and skin, a leopard pores and skin, and a tiger skeleton had been seized, in response to Tamil Nadu forest division sources. Wildlife SOS had claimed credit score then, too, for each the seizure and the poachers’ subsequent conviction.
Satyanarayan co-founded Wildlife SOS with Geeta Seshamani in 1995. The organisation started with a bear rescue centre in Agra, later added an elephant facility in Mathura, and has since expanded throughout India by way of MoUs with states and sub-centres.
