At a conference held in Medan on the island of Sumatra, Indonesia, in February 1993, the latest statistics for orangutan populations was estimated at between 12,000 and 20,500. This figure exposes the shrinking numbers of this endangered species. It appears that the decade of the 1990s will be the twilight of the orangutans. In a vile and disgusting illegal trafficking and smuggling trade to vivisection laboratories and zoos baby orangutans are obtained by shooting the mothers and stuffing the babies, many unweaned, into crates with packing material to help muffle their cries. They are drugged, unfed, unwatered, overheated, dehydrated, traumatised, stressed and terrified. Ten orangutans die for every baby which survives to its destination. The babies dying en route can truly be called the lucky ones.

"Covered in vomit and faeces, wedged into two small crates, each divided into three compartments, they had been wrapped around with cloth and newspaper... starving, dehydrated from lack of water, suffering from otitis media, conjunctivitus, pneumonia, intestinal parasites, ringworm, anaemia and fear... they screamed whenever a human went near them... The defendants rarely see the animals and birds in which they deal and send off to their deaths. They place an order, provide funds and let somebody else do the dirty-work. There is so much money to be made out of legal and illegal animal trading that greed overrides conscience. Such people think that money can buy anything, that they are above the law."
- Leonie Vejjajiva, President, Wild Animal Rescue Foundation of Thailand, describing the condition of six orangutans and two siaming gibbons confiscated at Don Muang Airport, Bangkok, IPPL newsletter April 1993.

IPPL reports that the infamous orangutan smuggler Matthew Block, though having his passport seized was subsequently allowed to fly in secret to Singapore where he met his accomplice the Dutch orangutan smuggler Kenny Dekker. While awaiting trial, Block appeared at various times in Thailand, Germany, England and the Caribbean. A month after he was sentenced to jail Block took off again - this time to Africa. Shirley McGreal of IPPL says these criminals are:

"free to deal, travel, facilitate money-laundering, asset concealment, corruption and to meet with members of organised animal smuggling syndicates".

The Court dropped four felony charges and are charging him on two misdemeanours. The trial is on 15 April.

Block's company Worldwide Primates Inc. is, according to one of his pious lawyers, "a licensed facility which supplies primates only to research facilities and licensed laboratories. Worldwide Primates does not sell animals to breeders, wholesale or retail facilities, or purchasers who intend to utilise the animals in any capacity other than 'approved research'!"

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