Smuggled pangolin seized in Pran Buri
The Customs Department has seized 136 live pangolin and 450 kilograms of pangolin scales worth Bt2.5 million that had been smuggled from Malaysia into Thailand to be forwarded to China, department chief Kulit Sombatsiri said on Thursday.
The “most trafficked mammals in the world” were confiscated on Wednesday night following a tip-off that pangolins were being smuggled from Malaysia into Thailand and transported in two pickup trucks that had already passed through Chumphon.
Officers at Prachuap Khiri Khan’s Pran Buri customs checkpoint searched two suspicious trucks and found pangolins and scales, he said.
The endangered pangolin – which fetches high prices in Asia for its scales, which are believed to have medicinal qualities, and meat – is banned in international commercial trade per the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (Cites) and from import and export by Thailand’s Wildlife Protection Act 1992, said Kulit.
So far this year, the Customs Department has seized pangolins and their products weighing 2.9 tonnes and worth Bt29 million, and also confiscated 16,730 pieces of elephant tusks and ivory products worth Bt7.5 million, Kulit said.
Authorities have prosecuted 34 cases linked to Cites-protected species and items worth more than Bt246 million this year, he added.
