Police in the central Nghe An Province have caught three men with 209 kg of ivory thought to be smuggled in from abroad following a tip-off from the public.
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The seized ivory |
Le Anh Chien and Bui Quang Trinh, both 40, and Nguyen Van Tinh, 35, were arrested yesterday while carrying the banned cargo in a van on National Highway 1A in the provincial capital Vinh. All of them belong to neighboring Ha Tinh Province.
Another man escaped when three police cars stopped the van for examination, Colonel Tran Hong, the city/province? police chief, said.
The provincial anti-environmental crime police department had kept tabs on the vehicle driven by Chien when it departed from Tay Son town in Ha Tinh, he said.
The smugglers told the police they had been taking the ivories for delivery to a trader in Vinh.
The Ecology Institute examined them ivory and concluded they were of foreign origin and worth more than VND6 billion (US$288,000).
The police are hunting for the escaped smuggler.
This was the largest ever ivory smuggling case discovered in the province, Hong said.