Vietnam has become an “important link” in the global wildlife trafficking chain, an official said, citing 700 trafficking cases involving 5,000 wild animals and plants have been busted in 2010’s first half.
Do Quang Tung, deputy director of Vietnam’s executing agency for the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) told a conference last Thursday that smugglers now used many “sophisticated” ways.
“The goods may be hidden in the smugglers’ clothes, luggage, packs, containers, etc.”
The transporters may be foreign students or even diplomats, he added.
According to CITES Vietnam, authorities detected 12 imports of rhino horns between 2004 and 2009 and 8 cases of tiger and tiger parts in 2007-10. Hai Phong custom office alone seized 15 tons of ivory between 2009-10.
Ha Cong Tuan, deputy chief of the central Forestry Department, said Vietnam is both the market and stopover for elephant tusks, tigers and rhino horns.
As for ivory, it is usually transported from Hong Kong and Singapore’s ports to Vietnam’s Hai Phong Port under the cover of products for re-export. They will then be exported to China via border gates in the north.
Meanwhile, tigers are usually smuggled via roads to Laos, Cambodia, Thailand and Myanmar.
Tuan said Vietnamese police mostly discovered the smuggling cases thanks to information provided by Interpol or ASEAN Wildlife Enforcement Network; otherwise it is very hard to find out.
In other news, seven Vietnamese are being detained in South Africa for hunting, transporting and trading in rhino horns.
Back in 2008, the Vietnamese government recalled a senior diplomat from South Africa after she was filmed receiving a rhinoceros horn from smugglers.
Models of wildlife trafficking objects like bear paws and tiger skulls are being displayed at the Noi Bai Airport in Hanoi to increase public awareness of the issue.