Leopard Skins Seized Top Delhi Wildlife Ngo Accused Of Nexus With Poachers

Investigators have found that a seasoned wildlife-contraband trader and his associate, arrested by the Madhya Pradesh State Tiger Task Force (STTF) earlier this week over an alleged big-cat poaching operation, were on the payroll of a prominent Delhi-based wildlife conservation NGO, The Indian Express has learnt.

In custody, the trader, Bhagwan Singh alias Salim, and his accomplice Wasim are said to have told investigators they were acting on the instructions of Wildlife SOS CEO Kartick Satyanarayan. The STTF has since served Satyanarayan a notice to appear before the Investigating Officer in Shivpuri on August 17.

Investigators say they have gathered “substantial digital evidence” tying him to an operation they believe was run “for personal gains.” They are examining whether Satyanarayan “organised poaching and staged seizures” to build his and the NGO’s anti-poaching profile, and whether he was also involved in wildlife trafficking.

“After both key accused, who were on the payroll of Wildlife SOS, named Kartick Satyanarayan, he has been asked to appear before the Investigating Officer. We are coordinating with the WCCB (Wildlife Crime Control Bureau)…we will do everything it takes to secure our forests,” Madhya Pradesh chief wildlife warden Sameeta Rajoura told The Indian Express.

Satyanarayan did not respond to an email, messages and phone calls; Wildlife SOS co-founder and secretary Geeta Seshamani was also unavailable for comment.

The case traces back to July 23, when four poachers were arrested on the Gwalior-Agra highway with 10 leopard skins. At the time, NGO Wildlife SOS credited months of surveillance by its own Forest Watch anti-poaching unit for the bust. But because the pelts had originated in Madhya Pradesh, the STTF opened a parallel probe and that investigation is what has now turned the narrative on its head.

Field investigations in the Shivpuri and Morena forests turned up multiple sites where leopard remains were buried; these have been sent to the Wildlife Institute of India in Dehradun for DNA matching against the skins seized on July 23. Investigators also recovered three leg-hold traps, and it was this trail that led them to Bhagwan Singh and, through him, to Wasim. The MP STTF picked up Bhagwan Singh on August 11 and Wasim on August 13.

“Our teams also found three leg-hold traps and made some arrests which led them to the prime accused Bhagwan Singh, a wildlife trader with a long history, who turned out to be on the payroll of this NGO for at least five years. This led to the arrest of Wasim, another Wildlife SOS employee,” a senior Madhya Pradesh forest official said.

According to sources familiar with the investigation, Singh and his accomplices scouted forest areas around Shivpuri and Morena in a Wildlife SOS vehicle — now in STTF custody — and distributed leg-hold traps sourced from Haryana to handpicked local hunters. It was Singh, sources said, who arranged for four poachers to carry the 10 leopard skins to a decoy buyer near a dhaba on the Gwalior-Agra highway, where UP police made the arrests.

“This network started poaching leopards in the Shivpuri area last year. If it was indeed an undercover operation to nab poachers, why did they continue until 10 leopards had been killed? They have to explain why they created such a demand for skins and distributed leg-hold traps to be deployed in a sensitive landscape where we also have cheetahs,” a Forest department source said. Bhopal sources added that the department has not ruled out tigers also being caught in the same trapping network, despite the Shivpuri landscape’s only sporadic tiger presence.

A retired forest official suggested the alleged scheme fits a familiar trafficking playbook. “This could well follow the classical model where traffickers trade the high-value material to make profit while getting their rivals arrested with some low-value goods to earn brownie points — in this case, attract big donors and grants.” The same official pointed to Wildlife SOS’s aggressive fundraising for rescued bear cubs at Bhopal’s Van Vihar zoo, under an MoU with the state that is due to expire next month.

Singh’s arrest is also reviving scrutiny of an earlier case. A former Delhi Police officer who was dismissed from the force, Singh, with Wasim, was reportedly present in Tamil Nadu’s Sathyamangalam forest area in 2023, when a tiger skin, a leopard skin, and a tiger skeleton were seized, according to Tamil Nadu forest department sources. Wildlife SOS had claimed credit then, too, for both the seizure and the poachers’ subsequent conviction.

Satyanarayan co-founded Wildlife SOS with Geeta Seshamani in 1995. The organisation began with a bear rescue centre in Agra, later added an elephant facility in Mathura, and has since expanded across India through MoUs with states and sub-centres.

Jay Mazoomdaar is an investigative reporter focused on offshore finance, equitable growth, natural resources management and biodiversity conservation. Over two decades, his work has been recognised by the International Press Institute, the Ramnath Goenka Foundation, the Commonwealth Press Union, the Prem Bhatia Memorial Trust, the Asian College of Journalism etc. Expertise and Experience Mazoomdaar’s major investigations include the extirpation of tigers in Sariska, global offshore probes such as Panama Papers, Robert Vadra’s land deals in Rajasthan, India’s dubious forest cover data, Vyapam deaths in Madhya Pradesh, mega projects flouting clearance conditions, Nitin Gadkari’s link to e-rickshaws, India shifting stand on ivory ban to fly in African cheetahs, the loss of indigenous cow breeds, the hydel rush in Arunachal Pradesh, land mafias inside Corbett, the JDY financial inclusion scheme, an iron ore heist in Odisha, highways expansion through the Kanha-Pench landscape etc. ... Read More