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<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2><!--StartFragment --> 28. September 2004
<P>Rio de Janeiro - Brazilian police arrested a German scientist suspected of
illegally collecting hundreds of spiders, but the accused "bio-pirate" was
released because Brazil lacks laws against such crimes, police said on
Monday.<BR><BR>The scientist, Carsten Hermann Richard Roloff, was arrested on
Saturday and released on Sunday, but police confiscated hundreds of spiders
contained in plastic cups and over 500 spider eggs.<BR><BR>Since there are no
laws against bio-piracy, Roloff was arrested on suspicion of trafficking wild
animals, police said. Bio-piracy involves the appropriation and patenting of
native biological resources without the consent of indigenous
communities.<BR><BR>Globo television on Sunday broadcast a police video showing
Roloff sorting the spiders in a hotel room. He had arrived in Brazil on
September 4.<BR><BR>Jorge Pontes, chief of the federal police's ecology
division, said it was the country's first proven case of
biopiracy.<BR><BR>"There must be more than 200 bio-pirates acting like him in
Brazil," Pontes said. "We need an efficient mechanism to combat this type of
crime."</P>
<P><A
href="http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1&click_id=31&art_id=qw1096322761965B216">http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1&click_id=31&art_id=qw1096322761965B216</A></P></FONT></DIV></BODY></HTML>