A man has been charged with the theft of marmosets from a research center located in Bas-Rhin, we learned on Tuesday from a source close to the investigation. The young man was charged and placed in pre-trial detention, the same source said, confirming information from Latest News from Alsace.
He was arrested last week in the Lyon region and his motivation was “sinister”: he wanted to resell these monkeys, according to this source, and digital traces of the sale of these animals were discovered.
Marmosets weighing between 300 and 500 grams as adults have not been found. Two other people were arrested but released.
A dozen primates disappeared
Investigations led by the Strasbourg research brigade continue to identify other perpetrators. “He may not have acted alone,” said a source close to the investigation.
A dozen primates disappeared in September at the primatology center of the University of Strasbourg, located in a fortress built by the Germans in 1870, in Niederhausbergen (Bas-Rhin).
Created in 1978, it covers more than seven hectares of forest land and is home to around 800 animals of different species under the supervision of around thirty people. There, primates are used for various types of research, ranging from biomedicine to animal behavior studies.
“Primates (…) do not originate from a sample of wild populations living in the wild, but they have been born in captivity for several generations and are involved in conservation programs at European level,” explains the Center for Primatology on its website.
In February 2024, two men were arrested in Beauvais for illegal possession of a squirrel monkey, purchased via the Snapchat app. The animal had been stolen from the zoological park of La Londe-les-Maures (Var).
