From: Rusty�Bullethole, [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Times 2.10.00
Thieves use apes and snakes to threaten victims
FROM ADAM SAGE IN PARIS
FRENCH criminal gangs are using snakes and Barbary
apes to intimidate their victims and ward off the police.
According to French detectives and vets, dangerous
reptiles and monkeys are increasingly common in the
run-down estates around big cities.
Fran�ois Grandjean of the Paris Fire Brigade and a
lecturer at the Alfort Veterinary School, near the
capital, said several gangs of muggers were operating
with snakes instead of the more traditional knives.
Victims on the M�tro and on the streets of Paris
claim they have been threatened with a fatal bite if they
fail to hand over their wallets, handbags and mobile phones.
M Grandjean said: "Not all of the snakes are
poisonous, but if someone attacks you, you don't hang
around to check. Whereas we used to catch about ten of
these snakes a year, now we are up to 150 or 160."
Poisonous reptiles represent about a third of the total
caught by his specialist team, but they capture only a
small proportion of the underworld snakes in French urban
estates.
Police are also worried by a number of threats
using Barbary apes, which have flourished following a
crackdown by the authorities on pitbull terriers.
About 500 of the apes from north Africa and
Gibraltar,which sell in France for up to L600, are
believed to have been smuggled into the country.
The apes can become aggressive and dangerous if
removed from their native environment and brought up in
isolation.
They weigh less than 55lbs but have muscles five
times as strong as a man's and a jaw that can inflict
serious injury.
"There is every reason to be afraid,"
Marie-Claude Bomsel-Demontoy, a vet at the Natural
History Museum in Paris, said. "The male apes,
considering men to be their rivals, [will attack] their
sexual organs first."
------------------
Having once been bitten by a monkey (female -
don't ask), that last bit is horrifying.
Rusty
Cybershooters website: http://www.cybershooters.org
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