The prionodon is a rare sighting. A seeker would have to drive to the jungles of Sumatra, Borneo or Java, pick through the dense foliage, and scan overhead through the dim light. The gentle-eyed weasel has been on Indonesia’s list of protected species since 1999 , which forbids its hunting or trading.
These days, though, the more likely place to spot a prionodon isn’t among branches, deep in the jungle. It’s in a post on Facebook — the animal likely appearing hunched and petrified, on the floor of a living room.
In Indonesia, Facebook is filled with groups where illegal sellers thrive, trading in exotic animals on behalf of hunters. Scroll through the groups, and the regularity of posts is staggering. Here, a rare yellow monkey perches on the back of a cracked vinyl sofa. There, an illegal spotted cat shrinks into the corner of a dirty cage.
Over five months in 2023, Rest of World followed seven Facebook groups that claim to be run by self-proclaimed “animal lovers” — but which actually sell wildlife, including protected animals. Illegally trafficked animals usually make their way into the hands of collectors in Indonesia or abroad, as anything from gifts to stock for zoos.
“It’s very easy to sell on Facebook, and very easy to earn money,” Riski Riswandi, a former trafficker, told Rest of World. “Not to brag.” Until his arrest in 2021, Riswandi was among the most trusted names in illegal wildlife trafficking in Medan province. Known by his Facebook burner account name, “Rizky Rabbit,” the 23-year-old and his team sold everything from prionodons to endangered golden cats via Facebook, escaping takedown by the platform and detection by authorities.
Facebook’s guidelines state that it prohibits “attempts to buy, sell, trade, donate or gift, or asks for, endangered species or their parts.” The platform has also partnered with organizations like Trade Records Analysis of Flora and Fauna in Commerce, the World Wildlife Fund, and the International Fund for Animal Welfare to reduce such activities. Between January and May 2021, Facebook said it removed more than 1,953 groups linked to prohibited wildlife sales operating in the Philippines and Indonesia. Facebook did not respond to detailed questions from Rest of World .
For Indonesians, Facebook is the favored platform for trading, due to the ability to easily create groups and sell through them. It’s not alone: Across Southeast Asia, giant e-commerce sites like Shopee and Tokopedia also host hundreds of listings that apparently defy detection and removal, one recent study found .
Such listings go unnoticed because platforms generally don’t devote resources to finding and taking them down, Krismangko Padang, a policy analyst at the Ministry of Environment and Forestry, told Rest of World .
While Facebook offers a Report function for users to flag suspicious activity, it doesn’t verify accounts, which opens up the possibility for people to deal goods under fake identities. It also does not actively monitor groups and pages. One of the ways Facebook says it controls wildlife trafficking is by tracking certain search terms in English, but experts and government officials said there are ways to avoid setting off alarms.
Riswandi quickly worked out how to escape Facebook’s attention. He kept his posts on the platform vague and absent of keywords, appearing to proudly show off his own collection. “I’ve had a fun day playing with this. Do you think you would too?” he would post, teasingly, alongside a picture or video of an exotic animal. Those in on the secret, however, knew to contact him over any “pet” he displayed.
Many brokers use codes — for instance, “G4” stands for gading gajah or elephant ivory, Dwi N Adhiasto, an experienced Indonesian wildlife conservationist, told Rest of World . But often Riswandi didn’t even need to do that.
It’s very easy to sell on Facebook, and very easy to earn money.”
Fake accounts are a key tool for brokers, government investigator Haluanto Ginting told Rest of World . Ginting is a senior officer with the department of Environmental and Forestry Law Enforcement (Gakkum) for the Sumatra region. His team has been tracking illegal animal trafficking online for years, usually following a single trading ring for months at a time in an attempt to crack it.
“One animal can be sold through 10 accounts,” said Ginting. Traffickers spam various groups with posts of exotic animals to sell them faster.
Ginting said his team runs its investigations without help from Facebook. Last year, Gakkum and Indonesian law enforcement managed to catch a group attempting to offload 15 kilograms of pangolin scales. But the traders were rookies, and hasty enough to get caught. “Old players will usually hold onto the goods for longer.”
“When our [undercover buying] team wants to make purchases and transactions, the [seller] will ask for transactions through third-party accounts,” Ginting said. “When we don’t want to, they get suspicious and we lose contact.”
Among the Facebook groups that Rest of World tracked, most sellers’ posts dealt with regular animals, such as rabbits and common weasels. But camouflaged among these listings are posts for illegal animals. In a 1,280-person group named Komunitas Pecinta Hewan Asahan (“Animal lovers of Asahan”), one post from late March shows a scaly gray animal, which appears to be a pangolin , shot from above. “What is the price?” asks a user in the comments. In a video posted to the same group in early July, what appear to be two tiny forest cats, or kucing hutan — forbidden to remove from the wild — frolic in a concrete yard.
Some accounts cropped up repeatedly across different groups. The user Sáng Hyang — not a real name in Bahasa Indonesia — appears in several groups, posting images and videos of protected species such as the forest cat , brahminy kite, and hawk-eagle , among other wildlife, captioned with information about their physical state. The user Mapia Hewan also posts restricted animals in several groups, forest cats among them, along with screenshots of bank transfers to prove he is an experienced seller. Both accounts were active at the time of publishing.
Trading in protected animals is a crime in Indonesia, and generally carries a maximum prison sentence of five years and a fine of $6,500, though some sentences have been harsher. But the profits far outweigh the risks. Total animal trafficking transactions reached 13 trillion rupiah ($886,081,300) per year in 2017, according to the Wildlife Conservation Society . A piece of tiger skin can sell for over $5,000 , many times the average monthly salary.
According to a January report released by the Wildlife Conservation Society and Indonesia’s environment and forestry ministry, the amount of wildlife trade content on Facebook far exceeds that on other marketplace platforms in the country. Over 300 pieces of content analyzed from more than 100 accounts came from Facebook.
In Indonesia, the platform has never made sustained efforts to coordinate with law enforcement or conservationists, Ginting and Adhiasto told Rest of World .
“Even though Facebook has taken down the accounts that have been reported, perpetrators can still easily create new accounts, use fake names, even [make] dozens of accounts,” said Adhiasto, who has spent two decades in wildlife conservation. According to him, Facebook needs to carry out more intense screening of accounts that show indications of trading in illegal wildlife. Adhiasto was once invited to speak about trafficking at Facebook’s Singapore offices, he recalled, but hasn’t interacted with the company since.
Meanwhile, traffickers’ methods continue to shift. Sellers new to the industry have begun to post on WhatsApp rather than Facebook to keep deals restricted to known buyers, Chen Srie, a former trafficker in his forties, told Rest of World . He requested to use a pseudonym, to avoid reprisal from the trafficking community. Even the Facebook groups, usually public, are beginning to only admit those recommended by existing members.
Riswandi suspects it wasn’t his digital footprint that was his undoing, but a jealous dealer who blew his cover. After years of trading rampantly online, he was arrested by a team of police and conservation officers when he stopped at a gas station, on his way to send a cardboard box containing a rare golden cat to a buyer in Aceh province.
Riswandi still shows a glimmer of pride when he talks about his trafficking days. He hasn’t quite parted ways with his old profession. He still sells animals on Facebook — just not protected ones. “I don’t want to fall for a second time,” he said. “It’s an easy business and makes a lot of money. But if you’re not careful, then one day you will fall, like me.”
