Two ring-tailed lemurs stolen from a safari park in Bangladesh were trafficked to India and may have ended up in a private zoo run by India’s richest family, according to officials and reports.
The lemurs were part of a trio stolen from the Gazipur Safari Park in March 2025 and smuggled abroad, Bangladesh’s Criminal Investigation Department (CID) said. One of the three remained in Bangladesh and has been recovered by the authorities.
Bangladeshi daily Ajker Potrika reported that the endangered animals were trafficked across the border and eventually landed at a private zoo run by the Ambani family. They passed through several people before reaching the western city of Jamnagar, where they were allegedly sold to an institution associated with the Vantara wildlife centre, the newspaper reported, citing officials.
The CID later said that it had not been able to confirm whether the animals were currently at Vantara.
Chufi Ullah, the CID Special Superintendent of Police, told The Business Standard that it had been established that the lemurs were taken to India through a wildlife trafficking network after being stolen from the safari park.
"We learned this during the interrogation of those involved in the trafficking. However, we have not yet been able to determine where the animals were taken afterwards," he said.
Dhaka has now sought assistance from Interpol to repatriate the animals, the process of which has been complicated by a lack of microchips, unique identification numbers, or stored DNA profiles to verify their identities, according to the newspaper. Authorities are seeking to DNA-profile the juvenile lemur still in Bangladesh to determine its blood relation with the two trafficked animals.
Vantara said it was willing to cooperate with the DNA tests. In a statement to The Independent, the zoo “categorically denied that the lemurs referred to in these reports were illegally acquired from Bangladesh or that trafficked animals from Bangladesh are in its care”.
“We maintain comprehensive provenance records for the lemurs at Vantara and have made clear that we wish to cooperate with the relevant authorities in Bangladesh, including through DNA comparison if appropriate. Vantara has zero tolerance for illegal wildlife trafficking.”
Lemurs, native to Madagascar in Africa, are critically endangered.
The stolen lemurs were brought into Bangladesh through the Dhaka airport in 2018 under a false declaration to customs, investigators said. They were rescued and moved to the safari park.
The Ajker Potrika report said the lemurs were smuggled out to India through the Darshana border in Chuadanga and sold for nearly Rs4.8m or £504,000.
The animals were stolen with the help of a security guard and taken to India with the help of a border lineman, investigators said, citing confession statements.
Investigators said six of the eight suspected in the smuggling case had made confessions before a local court.
Vantara is a 3,500-acre zoo in Gujarat run by the Radhe Krishna Temple Elephant Welfare Trust, which is backed by Reliance, a business conglomerate owned by Mukesh Ambani, one of Asia’s richest people.
It was conceived by the billionaire industrialist’s son, Anant Ambani.
The Ambani family has long enjoyed a close relationship with prime minister Narendra Modi, who inaugurated the zoo in March 2025.
Animal rights groups have expressed doubts about Vantara’s value as a genuine conservation initiative, pointing to a lack of transparency over its acquisitions as well as its emphasis on rare species and grand infrastructure. They have also questioned its impact on public zoos due to the transfer of animals to the private zoo from states like Uttarakhand and Madhya Pradesh.
Vantara has also faced allegations of improper import of animals, triggering scrutiny from authorities in Germany and the EU.
Vantara has rejected the allegations as “entirely false and baseless”.
This story was updated on Tuesday 15 September to reflect new statements by Bangladesh’s CID and Vantara.
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