MAPUTO, April 13 (Xinhua) -- Mozambican customs updated on Friday morning the seizure of 3.5 tons of ivory in a container which had Cambodia as the declared destination from the Maputo port.
According to Fernando Tinga, communication officer of the Tax Authority, there are two alleged dispatchers of the merchandise who have been detained and the owner of the smuggled ivory has already been identified.
"In the physical examination we did, we found 870 pieces of ivory, and by the amount of ivory, 434 elephants were slaughtered in several parental parks," he said, considering this apprehension as the greatest ever in the southeastern African country.
Mozambique has been a signatory for the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora since 1981.
At the time of the apprehension of the horns on Thursday morning, Tinga said that the two detained "informed the authorities that the merchandise was resin, the material for producing plastic," but one of the set of six containers turned out to have huge bulk of ivory buried under plastic waste. Enditem
