A suitcase containing 185 live baby tortoises has been uncovered by stunned airport workers.
The reptiles were found individually wrapped in plastic inside luggage at Ecuador’s Galapagos Islands airport and were less than three months old, according to officials. Ten of them had died.
Jorge Rosillo, the airport’s manager, said it was believed the tortoises were intended to be shipped to Guayaquil Airport on mainland Ecuador for the “trafficking of species”. He said some species of tortoise originating from the Galapagos Islands were “really sought after in the Asian market”.