KLIA customs seize 111kg of ivory tusks

SEPANG: An attempt to smuggle ivory tusks was foiled by the KL International Airport (KLIA) customs' department when it seized 111kg of the contraband, worth an estimated RM946,698, about two weeks ago.
Its customs director Datuk Chik Omar Chik Lim said that six air cargo packages flown in from overseas were suspected of carrying smuggled or illegal items.
He said a 100% check was carried out on these packages and they found 111kg of ivory tusks with some of them cut down into smaller pieces and made into items like vases and lamp shades.
The haul was discovered on Aug 8 in KLIA and investigations revealed those behind the smuggling attempt had declared these items as "cereals", he told a press conference at the customs office KLIA today.
He said when the officers checked the cargo they found that some packages had cereals while the others had the tusks.
The packages arrived from a Turkish Airline flight from Entebbe, Uganda, to Istanbul, Turkey, and then to KLIA, he added.
He said they were trying to identify the smugglers or owners of the tusks, and that the address given was a false one in Salak Tinggi.
"We called the number listed and went to the site but the company listed on the packages was a bogus one," he added.
The bringing in of the illegal items was a violation of the Customs Act 1967 as well as the Endangered Species Act 2008 and the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species.
He said Malaysia does not have a market for these items, and smugglers' usually use the country as a transit point with the final destination usually being Thailand or China where there is a big demand for them for use in traditional medicine and decorations with a kg of the tusks fetching up to RM10,000.
He said KLIA customs department has handed over some 1,174kg of smuggled tusks and its semi products, worth RM10.19million and seized in eight cases from 2015 to 2016, to the Wildlife and National Parks Department.