The Daily Star, AFP, February 03, 2013
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| Ivory tusks are displayed after being confiscated by Hong Kong Customs in Hong Kong Friday, Jan. 4, 2013. (AP Photo/Kin Cheung) |
BANGKOK: A
Thai policeman has been arrested after he was caught trying to smuggle 20
elephant tusks, officials said Sunday.
The haul
was discovered when the suspect -- in plain clothes but driving a police van --
was stopped at a checkpoint in the southern province of Chumphon on Saturday,
Police Colonel Chalard Polnakarn told AFP.
"We
found 10 pairs of elephant tusks in the van and charged him with illegal
possession of elephant tusks, which he confessed to during the
investigation," Chalard said.
The origin
of the tusks was unclear.
International
trade in elephant ivory, with rare exceptions, has been outlawed since 1989.
But a rise
in the illegal trade in ivory has been fuelled by demand in Asia and the Middle
East, where elephant tusks are used in traditional medicines and to make
ornaments.
Conservationists
say ivory from Africa is often smuggled into Thailand and passed off as coming
from Thai elephants, as a legal loophole allows the legal trade in ivory from
domesticated elephants.
Wildlife
campaign group Freeland praised the latest seizure as a "valiant act of
fighting corruption to protect wildlife".
"We
need more officers like them to fight this new form of transnational organised
crime," Freeland director Steven Galster said in a statement.
Freeland
said that in the past year thousands of tusks had been seized as they were
smuggled into Asia from Africa due to "rampant elephant poaching".
It comes as
Thailand prepares to host the Convention on International Trade in Endangered
Species of Wild Flora and Fauna (CITES) in Bangkok in March.
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