Jailed and fined for having 19,000 green turtle eggs

Crime doesn’t pay: Policemen escorting (from second left) Impang, Pikong and Totoh from court.

SANDAKAN: Three Filipinos were jailed between two and four years and given hefty fines by a Sessions Court here for possessing 19,000 eggs of the endangered green turtle.

The three – Pikong Ismail, 23, Totoh Susuk, 35, and Impang Utuk, 45 – pleaded guilty to the offences before Sessions Court judge Ummu Kalthom Abdul Samad here yesterday.

Totoh, who was caught with 11,000 eggs, was sentenced to four years in jail and fined RM25,000 in default 12 months’ jail while Impang got three years in jail and a RM15,000 fine in default six months’ jail for having 5,000 eggs.

Pikong, who had 3,000 eggs, was given two years in jail and fined RM10,000 in default six months’ jail.

The men had intended to smuggle the eggs into Sandakan.

Sabah Wildlife Department prosecutor Abdul Karim Dakog told the court that the three were arrested by marine police separately while they were trying to smuggle in the eggs in pump boats via Sungai Batu 2 here between July 16 and 17.

The judge then ordered the eggs to be destroyed as well as for their boats to be forfeited.

On July 24, a magistrate’s court had already sentenced Totoh, Pikong and Impang to six months’ jail and two strokes of the rotan on the charge of illegally entering Sabah.