Calcutta, Feb. 28: Poachers have killed 20 Royal Bengal tigers in the past few months, skinned the animals and collected their bones, nails and other organs for export to international buyers.

The Criminal Investigation department (CID) today made the startling revelation after its special operations group trapped an alleged tout, Purnendu Nyaban, and recovered a tiger skin from him. The group has so far got hold of three tiger skins.

The special superintendent of police in charge of the group, Manoj Malaviya, said after intense grilling” Nyaban revealed details of the places where the 17 other tiger skins were stocked.

“He has given a few names of persons involved in the racket. We are working out a plan to trap them and recover the rest of the skins,’’ Malaviya said.

Deputy superintendent of the group Tanmay Roy Choudhury posed as a buyer to trap Nyaban. “We had information that the poachers were looking for buyers in Calcutta,” he said.