Rihanna’sĀ vacation selfies helped Thai investigators capture two men charging tourists to take photos with an animal on the protected species list.
The serieź¦¬s of Instagram snapshots taken in Phuket over the weekend show RiRi posing with a slow loš¼ris, an adorable wide-eyed primate that is a protected animal.
The tiny creature nuzzlšÆed the singerās shoulder in a pic that got more than 220,000 liākes on Instagram.
“Look who was talkin dirty to me!ā She tweeted in a link to the picture to her 31.7 million Twitter followers.
“Phuket authorities were alerted to the picture and last night police arrested the two individuals who brought out the loris as a photo opportunity for tourists,” a Phuket police commander told the Associated Press.
Cops nabbed two lorises from a 20-year-old man and a 16-year-old boy who were reportedly charging tourists incliding Rihanna forš pictures with the squirrel-like cuties. Both animal wranglers were charged ā with possession of a protected species and could get up to four years in prison and have to pay a 40,000 baht ($1,300) fine.
The globetroā¤tting pop diva was on a break from her Diamonds world tour, and had plenty of pictures taken with local wildlife.
Fans and animal activists were torn over whether to hail her for helping catch the wrong-doers or blast her for fueling the bš usiness.
āThey kill their mothers so you can take a picture with it,ā wrote anitaolea. āPeople open ur eyes and don’t support this!”
āThis pic exposed them,ā countered another Instagrš°ammer, oluwatimilehin.