Customs authorities in India have arrested a man who was attempting to board a flight at New Delhi’s international airport with an endangered monkey in his underwear. The suspect from the United Arab Emirates, who was detained along with two other travellers, had arrived from the Thai capital Bangkok and was about to take a connecting flight to Dubai on Jet Airways. “Security personnel found the monkey in his underwear while frisking the transit passengers,” a customs official told AFP.The seven-inch (17-centimetre) loris is a type of monkey native to India and southeast Asia, and is seen by some as possessing aphrodisiac qualities.Petite and round-eyed with a white stripe down its face, “the monkey is an endangered species,” said the official. Another was discovered in a dustbin at the Indira Gandhi International airport. It had been abandoned because the men could not carry him. Both monkeys have been handed over to animal welfare organisation People for Animals headed by former environment minister Maneka Gandhi, the official said.
