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AKARTA: Airport authorities, assisted by animal aid activists, foiled an attempt Sunday to smuggle 30 exotic birds and three Sunda lorises from passengers at Soekarno-Hatta International Airport.

The birds and primates were found inside four bags brought by a family of three, AB, E and SA, who had Saudi Arabian passports and were booked on a flight to Riyadh.

The birds included a black-capped lory, eight pigeons, a salmon-crested cockatoo, a Goffin's cockatoo, 16 hill mynas, an olive-headed lorikeet, a purple-naped lory, and an umbrella cockatoo, Jakarta Animal Aid Network said in a statement sent to The Jakarta Post on Tuesday.

The three smugglers were not arrested because their embassy vouched for them.

"The suspects should have been immediately detained to prevent them from fleeing," Irma of the Animal Advocacy Institute (LASA) was quoted as saying in a statement.