Fifty-five pieces of rhino horn were found encased inside shipments of plaster at Hanoi international airport, the Vietnamese authorities reported on Sunday, in the latest bust against sophisticated global wildlife traffickers. The Southeast Asian nation is both an end destination and transit point for multibillion-dollar smuggling operations of animal parts, including many endangered species. The 125-kilogram haul was discovered in a suspicious shipment of plaster casts on Thursday but it took half a day to smash the blocks apart, the
police told AFP. Images released to the media showed large and small pieces of rhino horns displayed on a table while police used rods to break them free. The blocks had been shipped from United Arab Emirates, in carefully disguised cargo that had that arrived on an Etihad Airways flight, the customs department said in a statement. It was not immediately clear where the shipment had originated from. Rhino horn is especially prized in
China and Vietnam, the two top consumer markets, where one kilogram can fetch up to $60,000. That would make the entire haul worth $7,500,000 (£6m). According to TRAFFIC, a campaign group against wildlife trafficking, the last decade has seen an
explosion of demand for rhino horns, driving unprecedented levels of poaching that has sent rhino populations into crisis despite a ban on the trade since the 1970s. Only about 29,000 rhinos are now left in the wild, down from half a million at the start of the 20th century, report conservationists. The trade has been fuelled by beliefs that when ground into a powder, the horn can cure cancer, relieve hangovers or enhance male virility. The Vietnamese operation is the latest large-scale wildlife trafficking case in Southeast Asia. Earlier this month, three men caught trying to smuggle rhino horn from Vietnam into China were sentenced to a combined total sentence of 27 years in prison. Meanwhile,
Singapore recorded a record bust last week of nearly nine tonnes of elephant ivory and almost 11.9 tonnes of pangolin scales from up to 33,000 pangolins. The contraband was found in three containers disguised as timber and travelling from the
Democratic Republic of Congo to Vietnam.