Dept makes record bust in wildlife parts

KUALA LUMPUR: From the body parts placed on three tables at Perhilitan headquarters, there must have been at least 100 animals killed to feed the exotic food and jewellery industries.

There was nearly RM2mil worth of elephant tusks, hornbill beaks, bear claws, animal bile, tiger bones and skin, and pangolin scales there.

The contraband was seized in a series of raids across the Klang Valley in the biggest bust by the Department of Wildlife and National Parks so far this year.

The authorities arrested two gangs – one run by two Malaysians and two Chinese nationals, and the other by eight Vietnamese men – during the operation.

The Malaysian and Chinese gang members were middle-aged, self-employed men who kept up a modest appearance while running their black market trade, said Perhilitan.

It said the Vietnamese gang was literally draped in tens of thousands of ringgit worth of ivory jewellery when its members were arrested last week.

The bust was the culmination of nearly eight months of surveillance and probes by Perhilitan, Interpol and Netherlands-based Wildlife Justice Commission, an organisation that investigates global organised networks illegally trading in endangered wildlife species, timber and fisheries.

Perhilitan raided houses in Kuala Lumpur, Rawang, Sungai Buloh and Puchong between Aug 25 and Merdeka Day, where they found large caches of wildlife parts being packaged.

Its newly-appointed director-general, Abdul Kadir Hashim, believes that most of these parts were brought in from overseas to be sold locally or exported to customers in Vietnam and China.

“Look at the tusks, their morphology indicates they cannot be from Malaysia because they’re too big. They must have been brought in.

“It may be through an airport or by land, we want to know how because this is really, really a lot of animal parts,” he told reporters yesterday.

Most are typically sold to customers via social media and Perhilitan is investigating the client lists of the two gangs.

Abdul Kadir said this was the first time Perhilitan had seized hornbill parts, the demand for which is increasing in South-East Asia and China in recent years, according to wildlife conservation group Traffic.