"Smuggled, Beaten and Drugged: The Illicit Global Ape Trade"

"The New York Times tracked international ape smugglers from Congolese rain forests to the back streets of Bangkok. Here is what unfolded."

"MBANDAKA, Democratic Republic of Congo — The sting began, as so many things do these days, on social media.

Daniel Stiles, a self-styled ape trafficking detective in Kenya, had been scouring Instagram, Facebook and WhatsApp for weeks, looking for pictures of gorillas, chimps or orangutans. He was hoping to chip away at an illicit global trade that has captured or killed tens of thousands of apes and pushed some endangered species to the brink of extinction.

'The way they do business,' he said of ape traffickers, 'makes the Mafia look like amateurs.'"

Jeffrey Gettleman reports for the New York Times November 4, 2017.