See All Key Ideas
A U.S. citizen suspected of international wildlife trafficking had three cell phones and a computer seized on May 1 as he arrived at Guarulhos International Airport in São Paulo, Brazil. According to a statement released by the Federal Police, the action is a development in an investigation “probing the international trafficking of golden lion tamarins and other endangered species of Brazilian fauna.”
The statement doesn’t mention the target’s name, but a source with ties to the investigation who asked to remain anonymous identified the man as Tony Silva, a renowned bird expert who was convicted of smuggling exotic birds into the U.S. from South America in 1996.
According to the source, Silva is suspected of coordinating the purchase of illegally traded animals for Vantara, a private mega zoo in the state of Gujarat, India, run by billionaire Anant Ambani, son of India’s richest man.
In an email to Mongabay, a Vantara spokesperson stated that the zoo “has no connection with the buying of illegal animals” and that “any attempt to link Mr. Silva’s personal affairs to Vantara, directly or by implication, would be factually incorrect and legally untenable.”
According to the organization, Silva is not and has never been its employee. “Vantara understands that he [Tony Silva] has been engaged by an independent contractor for limited consultancy relating to enclosure curation, husbandry and nutrition, considering his published work and experience in that field. He does not speak for, act for, or represent Vantara,” the spokesperson wrote. (See Vantara’s full response below.)
There is no official information linking Silva to Vantara. In 2025, however, the International Aviculture Industries Conference in Thailand described Silva’s role as “leading conservation” at the zoo. A bird specialist who also participated in that event, Beto Polezel, associated Silva with Vantara in a post on Instagram. And in March 2026, Silva shared information on his Instagram account about a conference that will be held at Vantara.
The connection between Silva and Vantara was also confirmed by an investigator from an international NGO that fights wildlife trafficking, who asked to remain anonymous.
The animals that were allegedly acquired illegally by Silva originated from different continents. In Brazil, the primary targets were the threatened golden lion tamarin (Leontopithecus rosalia) and Lear’s macaw (Anodorhynchus leari), species that were at the center of two recent wildlife trafficking cases.
In 2023, seven golden lion tamarins and 29 Lear’s macaws were rescued from Suriname and repatriated to Brazil. A year later, in February 2024, authorities in Togo rescued animals of the same species — 20 tamarins and 12 macaws — found aboard a sailboat that broke down off the African coast.
It is not clear whether Silva was involved in these cases.
According to Mongabay’s source, Silva allegedly has facilitated shipment of the black bearded saki monkey (Chiropotes satanas) to Vantara, another endangered species that only exists in the Brazilian Amazon.
Silva is a Cuban-born U.S. citizen and an international authority for exotic bird collectors. As an expert in tropical birds, he’s worked with organizations dedicated to protecting endangered parrot species. Silva also served as a curator at Loro Parque, a large zoo in Tenerife, in the Canary Islands.
However, Silva has a history of wildlife trafficking. In 1996, he was a target of Operation Renegade, a three-year undercover operation by U.S. Fish and Wildlife agents. He was sentenced to nearly seven years in prison and fined $100,000 for international wildlife trafficking.
According to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Silva “was convicted of conspiring to smuggle into the country some of the world’s most endangered, beautiful and protected wild birds.” He confessed to trafficking more than 185 hyacinth macaws and other rare South American birds from 1985 to 1994.
Silva was in Brazil to participate in Avicon, the largest congress for bird breeders in Latin America, held April 25-26 in the city of Itatiba, São Paulo. Before the alleged seizure of his equipment at Guarulhos Airport, he traveled through the interior of Bahia state, where he recorded videos for Instagram in locations inhabited by the endangered Lear’s macaw.
A person from Avicon’s organization team, who prefers to remain anonymous, confirmed that Tony Silva had his equipment seized in Guarulhos airport.
Mongabay reached out to Silva for comments, but he hadn’t responded by the time of publication.
Covering 1,400 hectares (3,500 acres) — an area the size of four Central Parks — Vantara is run by the philanthropic arm of Reliance Industries. The conglomerate, led by the Ambani family, includes petrochemical, oil and gas, telecom, retail, media and financial services industries. Chairman Mukesh Ambani is India’s richest individual; Vantara was launched by his youngest son, Anant.
Since its opening in March 2025, Vantara has drawn international attention for both its lavish facilities, such as an elephant jacuzzi, and suspicions that some of its animals may have illegal origins.
Self-described as the world’s largest animal rehabilitation center, the Vantara complex houses more than 150,000 animals across 2,000 species. Of these, at least 40,000 were brought from other countries, including endangered cheetahs, chimpanzees and orangutans.
The complex was also the venue for Anant Ambani’s 2024 pre-wedding reception. The event guest list included Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, Sundar Pichai and Ivanka Trump, who were among the 1,200 invitees.
In September 2025, an Indian Supreme Court investigation found no irregularities in Vantara’s animal acquisitions. The zoo has also been the subject of inspections by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), an international treaty signed by 184 nations and the European Union.
After visiting Vantara in September 2025, the CITES Secretariat requested that India “not issue any further import permits” for endangered species because of discrepancies between export and import trade data and questions regarding the origins of some animals. The recommendation was reversed at the CITES meeting in Uzbekistan in November, with decisive votes from Brazil, Japan the United States.
In March 2025, a joint investigation from the Venezuelan website Armando.info and the German magazine Süddeutsche Zeitung revealed that 5,359 animals left Venezuelan commercial breeders headed to Vantara facilities in 2024, based on a binational agreement on the exchange of animals for species conservation purposes. A golden lion tamarin was among those animals.
Vantara received another Brazilian endemic species, the blue Spix’s macaw (Cyanopsitta spixii), in a controversial transaction. Reuters reported that the Association for the Conservation of Threatened Parrots (ACTP), a German-based nonprofit, sent 23 of these birds to the Indian zoo in 2023, without Brazilian consent. The Spix’s macaw was declared extinct in the wild in 2019, and the birds sent to Vantara were part of a breeding program established to reintroduce them into the wild in their Brazilian habitat.
In a response to Reuters in November 2025, a Vantara spokesperson said the macaws’ transfer was “entirely lawful, non-commercial, and undertaken as a conservation breeding arrangement with ACTP.”
The current investigation is ongoing. According to the Brazilian Federal Police, the equipment seized in the Guarulhos airport “will be submitted for forensic examination to extract data and analyze the transnational criminal network.”
Vantara’s full response:
Vantara has no connection with the buying of illegal animals, and any suggestion to the contrary is incorrect. Similar allegations have already been examined by investigative, administrative, regulatory and judicial authorities in India and have not been sustained.
Mr. Tony Silva is not, and has never been, an employee of Vantara. Vantara understands that he has been engaged by an independent contractor for limited consultancy relating to enclosure curation, husbandry and nutrition, considering his published work and experience in that field. He does not speak for, act for, or represent Vantara.
His personal travel and affairs are entirely his own. Vantara had no knowledge of his travel to Brazil, no communication with him in that regard, and has not assigned any contractor, much less a contractor’s consultant, to any matter in Brazil.
Accordingly, any attempt to link Mr. Silva’s personal affairs to Vantara, directly or by implication, would be factually incorrect and legally untenable.
Vantara is a closed-to-public rescue, preservation and rehabilitation facility focused on lawful rescue, medical care and improved housing for captive animals. It remains available to assist lawful holders and authorities dealing with animals in suboptimal conditions, in accordance with applicable law.
Banner image: The Lear’s macaw had been at the center of two recent wildlife trafficking cases. Image courtesy of Fernanda Fontoura.
CITES withdraws recommendation to suspend trade of endangered species to India
FEEDBACK: Use this form to send a message to the author of this post. If you want to post a public comment, you can do that at the bottom of the page.
Source:
news.mongabay.com