Mariana van Zeller

We did a whole chain of who hunts them, who kills them, who transports them, and then who buys them.

And we started in the park with the Batwa pygmies.

You had a guest that I remember when I was doing research for the story I listened to.

Didn't you have a guest here?

Justin Ray.

Yeah, who did a story about that.

So the pygmies, you know, they've sort of lost their home, which is the forest.

The Congolese government says they can't be there and they have no money and no schools and no education and nothing, desperate situations.

So these people come out and say, if you get us a baby chimp, we'll pay you $10, $10 for a baby chimp.

And they go out, and the problem with baby chimps is that until they're five years old, they live at the hip of the mother, like always next to the mother.

It's the way their family is.

And so to be able to take and kidnap the child, they have to kill the whole family because the estimate, the average is like 10 chimps have to be killed in order to be able to take away one baby.

Because they'll attack, yeah.

They won't let you leave with a baby.

Yeah, it's very, very sad.

So we're talking to these guys who have done this.

There's a lot being sold.

So we then went online and did this whole investigation and found that it's actually super easy.

There are people online that you can reach out to and they will get you a chimpanzee or a baby gorilla.

It's crazy.