In India, cuddly and colourful animals are paraded across Instagram, Facebook and YouTube channels, where free advice is shared on how to raise a lemur – or what to feed an iguana – in congested megacities far from forest habitats.

Cuteness has become a commodity in Asia’s social media world, with Thailand’s main airport emerging as a reluctant hub for wild animal smuggling.

On Wednesday, a 19-year-old passenger bound for Taipei tried to evade security at Bangkok’s Suvarnabhumi airport with dozens of fist-sized tortoises strapped to her body.

A day earlier, hundreds of live turtles and bright blue-green iguanas, along with a freshwater crocodile, were all seized on arrival in Bangkok from the Indian city of Bengaluru.

There were raccoons in a box meant for check-in by an Indian woman on April 18. A few days before that, it was chameleons and a pair of endangered gibbons – also destined for India.

One of the raccoons had already died in the nearly airless container by the time airport authorities detected the box.