VietNamNet Bridge – Customs officers at the port of Hai Phong on May 4-5 unveiled nearly two tones of elephant tusks imported into Vietnam from Africa.

Cooperation leads to Tanzanian arrests in VN’s biggest ivory seizure case

Some 400 bags of tusk were hidden within two containers of dried seaweed which landed at the Hai Phong port on April 28.

According to customs officers, a man named Nguyen Quoc Hung, 34, who represented an import-export firm in Quang Ninh province made temporarily import - re-export arraingments for a large batch of dried seaweed, totaling 25 tonnes at the Hai Phong port on April 29.

Hung asked customs officers to finalize all formalities to re-export these containers within the day. The clever customs officers suspected something was amiss and on May 4-5, they checked the containers and found out nearly two tones of tusk. Tusks were cut into small pieces and covered by dry seaweeds.

The two containers were transported from Monbasa port in Kenya to Hong Kong and then Hai Phong port on April 28. Its final destination was China.

PV