Philippines authorities seize more elephant tusks smuggled from Dar (Tanzania)
Philippines authorities seize more elephant tusks smuggled from Dar (Tanzania)
THISDAY
May 19. 2009
CUSTOMS officials in the Philippines have seized a shipment of elephant
tusks from Tanzania estimated to be worth more than $1m (approx. 1.4bn/-).
Customs police in Manila said they made the catch after inspecting a
shipment of purported moulding machines which arrived on March 1 from
Tanzania.
The inspection is understood to have been based on a tip that the
contents of the shipment were falsely declared.
’’When we opened the container, the tip turned out to be true,’’ said
the Philippines Customs Police Chief, Joey Yuchongco. ’’The shipment
actually contained elephant tusks.’’
Yuchongco said his office was already coordinating with the Philippines
department of environment and natural resources on what to do with the
confiscated tusks.
He noted that such tusks are commonly used in the manufacture of
statues, figurines, and image replicas of saints, all of which have a
huge market in the predominantly-Catholic Philippines.
The Philippines Bureau of Customs (BoC) intercepted the tusks which a
local importer tried to smuggle from Tanzania through the Manila port.
Yuchongco said the government trophies were stacked in sacks inside a
20-footer container steel van that the importer, identified as 210
Enterprises, had abandoned at the port’s South harbour since March 1.
He said the BoC received information that the van had illegal cargo.
The registered importer, he said, had declared that the van was loaded
with blow moulding machines from Dar es Salaam.
’’But when we checked on the abandoned van last week, we were able to
ascertain that this was a false declaration, and that it contained
elephant tusks,’’ Yuchongo told reporters in Manila.
Elephant tusks are known to be the primary source of ivory, a white
material used in making religious statues, piano keys, and other
expensive products.
According to Yuchongco, the trading, buying, and selling of such tusks
is internationally illegal as it usually presupposes the wanton killing
of elephants.
In March this year, authorities in Vietnam announced the confiscation of
similar jumbo tusks also smuggled from Tanzania, worth a whopping
$29.41m (approx.40bn/-).
As Vietnamese officials moved to auction the 6,232 kilogrammes of tusks
smuggled out of the country, both the Tanzanian police and wildlife
authorities in Dar es Salaam said at the time that they were unaware
about the consignment.
And the latest reports of a fresh seizure of huge consignments of
elephant tusks from Tanzania by customs officials in foreign lands are
yet another clear indication that the wanton smuggling of ivory out of
the country is continuing unabated.