NEW DELHI, India (AFP) — Five baby orangutans abandoned in an Indian forest have exposed a “massive” exotic wildlife trade, with traffickers smuggling increasingly rare species into the country, experts say.

They warn of a growing multi-million-dollar trade in endangered animals, including apes smuggled through war-torn Myanmar to feed demand among wealthy Indians seeking exotic status symbols to flaunt on social media.

“There have been several instances of exotic wild animals being found or seized across the country, said Sumanth Bindumadhav of Humane World for Animals India. “The scale is massive.”

Critically endangered orangutans are native only to Indonesia’s Sumatra island and Borneo, which it shares with Malaysia and Brunei.

Yet the five tiny orangutans were found by rangers in Balasore, in India’s eastern Odisha state.

Aged around one-and-a-half years old, they are being cared for at a zoo. Indonesia has requested their return.

Bindumadhav’s group, in a June 2026 report, detailed what it called a “rising trade in exotic wildlife,” demonstrated by a “steep increase in seizures” that reflected a “surge in illegal trade.”

The report estimated India’s exotic-pet market at $42.6 million in 2024.

Orangutans and gibbons, small apes, were being “increasingly trafficked into India” from Southeast Asia’s rainforests, it added.