Trip to the confiscated animal warehouse in Barajas: "There are things that have been here for 15 years"

• ILLEGAL ANIMAL TRAFFICKING (I) From the rhino horn to the macaw: This is how the black market for protected animals that survives the pandemic operates in Spain

Two scaly pangolins, ten stuffed seahorses or the remains of a disemboweled snake are shown in some of the photos he keeps on his iPhone. "I am not going to say that extraordinary things happen every day, but a lot of them do," says the head of

while holding his phone. Attentive 24 hours to this tool plus his work, check the gallery of images to select one that illustrates how his days go by.

He has been occupying an office within the largest Spanish air border for two years. Of those on the first floor of terminal four of

, he works in the largest. "There is more space than in T1," says one of the customs chiefs. His mask, engraved with the traditional shield of that police force, hides a smiling gesture.

On the lower floor, his colleagues, the so-called 'views' of customs, direct the members of the

unit of the Civil Guard that is in charge of preventing

. They are developing the actions and flight checks that the Headquarters has scheduled for the day. "From eleven o'clock in the morning the phones start to burn," warns the head of the Passenger Service. A "hot" flight from Santo Domingo will land at 11:10.

On this type of flight, the suitcases of the selected passengers can hide tobacco, money, narcotic drugs and sexual enhancers, but also exotic animals, living and dead. Some of this fauna does not have international protection, but another does: the specimens protected by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (

). The overexploitation of their trade poses a threat to their survival. A sample of this lies in one of the four refrigerated chests of customs.

Inside one of the deposits, among the "waste of animal origin" that a poster announces, the passage of time is noticeable: a judicialized pangolin gradually acquires a dark color inside a vacuum-sealed bag.

This CITES species, received the highest international and European protection, arrived from Malabo (Equatorial Guinea).

"Right now

" explains a first corporal from the Customs Fiscal Protection.

It is the so-called jungle meat trade.

It comes from wild animals that live in this type of habitat and is destined for human consumption.

Two scaleless pangolins intercepted at the border. Photo courtesy of the Head of the Madrid Customs Service for Travelers.

"Guineans are very given to eating jungle meat," says the officer of the Armed Institute. But also in neighboring Cameroon, pangolins are eaten on special occasions. This is remembered by a person who worked there for an NGO and who prefers to remain anonymous. He did not know what a pangolin was, but wanted to be grateful for the "delicacy" offered to the group. "Half of us did not know what it was until we saw it for the first time, others were aware that it was a protected species and the rest

as one of possible sources of origin ". They finally refrained from eating it.

Where they had no option to choose whether or not to eat protected animals in serious danger of extinction was at the

. Dinner was intervened at Madrid customs before it reached the diners' plate. A five-foot-long black Amazonian caiman and a Komodo dragon had been programmed as exotic dishes on the menu. "People were going to pay

," says the head of the morning shift of the Fiscal Protection.

Komodo dragon bacteria are deadly to humans, even dead.

"All it takes is a small wound to generate septicemia that kills you in hours," explains a civil guard from customs.

After almost 17 years of experience detecting any type of contraband, controlling exports and imports and applying the tax legislation, this official has no doubts that "the person who deals with this type of merchandise knows the risks it entails."

DEATHS HIDDEN BEHIND THE RECORDS

Isolated from the bustle of the airport, in an area of ​​T4 not accessible to passengers, a room on the ground floor precedes a small warehouse.

There, an orange starfish, a necklace of pink corals and more seized white corals await on a table for identification and judgment from the CITES Lead Management Authority.

It is the beginning of an almost certain journey through two more warehouses.

When customs officials intervene a possible protected species, they request a report from the competent authority and then proceed.

"It is the most seized," says the head of the Travelers Service in reference to the corals and the starfish on the table.

Before going up to the next warehouse, his blue eyes look again at those pieces that were once part of the marine ecosystem.

We have to make sure that the punishment is commensurate with the crime.

During the last six years, in Spain, he and his colleagues have carried out interventions that have generated 3,216 acts of smuggling of animals protected by CITES - corals, other dead and live protected species, ivory, caviar or skins.

This conduct is a

.

However, due to the decrease in airport operations caused by the pandemic, "the number of files has dropped dramatically," says the head of smuggling at Barcelona customs.

A reflection of the effects of the coronavirus is in the files opened by corals. They are among those that have decreased the most compared to 2019, but their smuggling has not been eradicated as a result. The number of records for this type of offense, a total of 356, make them the fourth largest, according to statistics provided by the Department of Customs and Special Taxes of the Tax Agency.

These marine specimens, some arrived on flights from Cuba or the Dominican Republic, are kept under lock and key in a large warehouse on the second floor of the capital's customs office. They are not the only thing that occupies the metal shelves. Next to them, a colorful case houses a

. Inside another package are eight crocodile teeth and boa oil that were seized from a passenger who arrived from the Middle East. The collection of exotic animals is rich and varied. Another package contains

from a flight from Bogotá and a cardboard box holds a

arrived from the Seychelles.

"If no museum can use it to educate and raise awareness, in some cases they will be destroyed," says the head of the Madrid Customs Travel Service.

A group of ten lifeless seized seahorses. Photo courtesy of the Head of the Travelers Service.

Smuggling files for trafficking dead protected species, such as those from the warehouse, are the third most numerous.

The ivories and objects made with this bone constitute the second biggest problem faced by the authorities.

This is due to the fact that in 2020, compared to the rest of merchandise, the largest increase in records was registered with this part belonging to elephants, sperm whales or hippos.

The smuggling chief of the Barcelona customs explains that they send them "all the information once the smuggling has been discovered" and carry out "the necessary inquiries" to be able to specify the offense.

The procedure ends with a sanction.

The latter is what most worries the Panamanian

, secretary general of CITES.

From the headquarters of the organization in Geneva, he makes a request: "We have to make sure that the punishment is proportional to the crime and thus discourages this illegal trade, this criminal trade."

THE BLACK HOLE OF THE CUSTOMS IN MADRID

Numerous samples of illegal commercial transactions with dead animals and parts of them rest in a building secluded from the airport terminals. About twenty minutes by car separate T4 from the so-called

The head of the Travelers Service leaves his gray vest of the Tax Agency in the office. You don't have to haul any merchandise, but it's time to head into the area.

"I have not been in a long time," he says during the journey.

Near the Air Cargo Center stands an old dependency marked with a sign that time has been wearing away.

It reads: "Tax Agency. Customs Administration. Madrid-Barajas Airport. Warehouse and archives."

After a while, a person with an Asturian accent arrives to open the door.

He is one of the few customs officials who have the key to the door alarm.

As the manager of the abandonment warehouse, he knows almost all of what is in there.

A room of the abandonment warehouse is full of seizures of dissected protected species and parts of dead animals.Belén García-Pozuelo.

"There may be things from 15 years ago," says the head of the warehouse while looking at the wooden boxes.

Before reaching the CITES room -a room within the same warehouse-, other non-fauna goods fill part of the floor and the shelves.

Many cannot be destroyed because they continue to be prosecuted years later.

This is the case with counterfeit branded products.

Other objects belonged to travelers who did not pay the tariff at customs or who left or forgot in the terminals, and after 90 days no one claimed them.

"Somehow they have to be taken away from the terminal and they are brought here," explains this man from Oviedo as he walks with the head of the Passenger Service.

When you reach the left side of the warehouse, a preview of the CITES room appears: a big cat skin hangs over one of the metal shelves.

A few steps ahead, you see a

, horns of various animals, and two tortoise shells spread out between two pallets placed on the ground.

Steps before reaching the CITES room, an advance appears: parts of dead animals.Belén García-Pozuelo.

Three stuffed hyenas lose their skin next to a cheetah. Time does not stand still and everything inside the warehouse deteriorates while it continues to be prosecuted. "Its mere possession is illicit; it cannot be put on the market and

" explains the person in charge of the warehouse. Those pieces cannot be auctioned. "They fall into a black hole with no solution; once they enter, they no longer leave, there is no way," he says. The same happens with the parts stored in the CITES room.

Three containers contain a bat, a snake, and a small crocodile that are immersed in formaldehyde.

They do not know their purpose, but the warehouse manager thinks that they could have been used to make some concoction: "It is what customs has, you realize that there are people with very strange tastes," he reflects.

Next to it, a whiskey bottle with a label possibly written in Sanskrit contains a cobra holding a scorpion by the tail.

It came from the Travelers Service.

Among the animals on the long table in the CITES room there are four containers.

A bottle of whiskey contains a cobra and a scorpion.Belén García-Pozuelo.

At one end of the table,

at today's exchange rate.

There is also a group of three small naturalized crocodiles that were to be a couple's wedding gift.

The red-eyed cobra is surrounded by ivories: fangs that were dyed black to go unnoticed, a carved figure and suitcases with more fangs.Belén García-Pozuelo.

Likewise, among the seizures of the CITES room there is a crocodile head that houses a light bulb inside, seahorses with which they would have made infusions, powdered sperm whale for cosmetic laboratories, two elephant legs transformed into an ashtray and in an umbrella stand, a tiger tusk with a large root ... And

surround part of the table. It is a festival of extravagances.

Before leaving, the manager of the warehouse stops in front of a box containing corals and shells.

They were worn by a married couple returning from their honeymoon.

Upon landing in Madrid, the couple

for those memories.

"People travel and have to be careful with what they take, where they take it and what they buy, since they are animals that can be protected," he says with some sadness because people tend to be ignorant in these cases.

NOTE

This is the second installment in a three-piece series.

Like the previous one, it was presented as a final project in the Master of Investigative, Data and Visualization Journalism of EL MUNDO.

For more than six months, journalists

and

acted as tutors, editors and verifiers of all content.

They were also that much-needed support that every professional requires to improve and continue learning.

According to the criteria of The Trust Project

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