The 11 people are said to be responsible for the death of a Sumatran elephant

May 2, 2014 13:11 GMT  ·  By

News from Indonesia says that, this past April 16, a total of 11 people were taken into custody by police officials in Sumatra on the grounds that they had killed an elephant and used a chainsaw to cut off its tusks.

The pachyderm is believed to have been killed on April 1, and its body was soon discovered in a forest close to the village of Teupin Panah in the West Aceh district.

Mongabay informs that the Sumatran elephant was a male, and that it was about 12 years old when it was killed by a trap and butchered by folks looking to get its tusks.

Due to the fact that several other elephants remained close to the corpse for several days after the 12-year-old male had lost its life, it took a while for police officers to inspect the body, the same source tells us.

After being arrested, the 11 people confessed to having killed not just this elephant, but two others over the course of just one year. They also said that they had sold the tusks taken from the 12-year-old male for $2,158 (about €1,555).

Police officers are now trying to identify and capture the man whom the 11 poachers sold the tusks to and hope that they will eventually manage to bring him to justice as well.