{"id":12260,"date":"2018-08-21T13:25:23","date_gmt":"2018-08-21T13:25:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=12260"},"modified":"2018-08-21T13:25:23","modified_gmt":"2018-08-21T13:25:23","slug":"malaysia-foils-record-rhino-horn-smuggling-attempt","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=12260","title":{"rendered":"Malaysia foils ‘record’ rhino horn smuggling attempt"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Malaysia<\/a> has announced the seizure of 50 rhino horns<\/a> worth an estimated $12m, the biggest haul ever recovered in the country.<\/p>\n

Customs officials at Kuala Lumpur airport found the parts in cardboard boxes on August 13, Malaysia’s Wildlife Department said on Monday. \u00a0<\/p>\n

Datuk Abdul Kadir Abu Hashim, the department chief, said officials found a huge stash of animal bones – believed to be from tigers and leopards – in the same shipment.<\/p>\n

Animal carcasses were also found in the boxes.<\/p>\n

Abu Hashim said the rhino bones alone weighed 116kg, adding that the seizure was “the biggest ever in [Malaysia’s] history in terms of the number of horns and value.”<\/p>\n

“All the wildlife items confiscated were to be exported out of Malaysia without a proper permit,” he said in a statement, adding that the department will run DNA tests to identify each wildlife species found. \u00a0<\/p>\n

The shipment, valued at $11.7m, was bound for Hanoi, the capital of Vietnam.<\/p>\n

TRAFFIC, a group which monitors the illegal wildlife trade, said the case highlighted links between traffickers in Malaysia and Vietnam.<\/p>\n

“This was a very unusual mix of wildlife parts found – rhino horns which were clearly not from Asia and carnivore carcasses which could have originated from the country,” TRAFFIC’s acting Southeast Asia director Kanitha Krishnasamy said in a statement.<\/p>\n

“This discovery raises questions about how criminals are accumulating wildlife parts and using a multitude of routes and methods to traffic them onwards to destination countries.”<\/p>\n

Hot market<\/h2>\n

Vietnam is a big market for rhino horn, which is believed to have medicinal properties and is in high demand among the country’s growing middle class.<\/p>\n

A single kilo of rhino horn can be valued at tens of thousands of dollars in the region, where many falsely believe it can cure cancer.<\/p>\n

All rhino species are under threat of extinction, according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).<\/p>\n

Authorities have not made any arrests over the seizures yet.<\/p>\n

In April 2017, Malaysia seized about $3.1m worth of rhino horns flown in from Mozambique.<\/p>\n

Separately, authorities arrested a man on July 13 for illegal possession of three baby Sumatran orangutan.\u00a0<\/p>\n