Green monkey smugglers caught red-handed

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Authorities in southern Russia found eight monkeys of an internationally protected species in wooden crates and arrested those trying to smuggle them past a road checkpoint, Russia's Customs Service said on Monday.

Agents caught the two men as they were unloading crates from a Moscow bus into a taxi on the Rostov-Krasnodar regional border, the customs service said in a statement.

Inside were eight Green Monkeys, probably on their way to the Black Sea resort city Sochi, where they would have been made to pose for holiday snaps with paying tourists, it added.

The two men face charges of illegal wildlife commerce for smuggling the monkeys, who the authorities valued at 50,000-70,000 roubles (1,070-1,475 pounds) each.

(Reporting by Chris Baldwin, editing by Raissa Kasolowsky and Ibon Villelabeitia)