According to them, an absence of this unit is what led to a complete breakdown of communication between China and India leading to vital clues being lost. ‘‘And tigers and leopards cannot afford communication gaps between countries,’’ said Debbie Banks, senior investigator for EIA. The NGOs met Home Minister Shivraj Patil, Environment and Forest Minister A. Raja and wrote to the Prime Minister, urging them to put the bureau in place. The government has been claiming that the blueprint of the bureau is ready—it will have experts from the Customs, revenue, police and forest departments and will be set up on the lines of the Narcotics Control Bureau. It is likely to get operational ‘‘soon’’. Meanwhile, wildlife crime cases continue to be regularly reported with little conviction. Belinda Wright of the Wildlife Protection Society of India said 26 tiger skins, 85 leopard skins and 456 claws have been seized in the country alone in the last one year. But beyond seizures, there has been little follow-up. The Khaga seizure in UP in 2000, which was the biggest so far, is still being investigated by the CBI with zero conviction. Belinda Wright of the Wildlife Protection Society of India (WPSI) said: ‘‘There have been many seizures made in India in the last 10 years, but a lack of dedicated agency to follow up and investigate intelligence gathered at crime scenes means that the guilty go scot-free.’’ These seizures indicate that there is a sophisticated network of criminal masterminds controlling the trade in urban and cross-border areas. ‘‘Opportunities to break up poaching and trading rings in any meaningful way have been squandered,’’ said Banks. The link between India and Nepal, Tibet, China along traditional trade routes has been established for illegal wildlife products. However, there is complete lack of cross-border cooperation among these countries to coordinate enforcement operations.