Vietnamese with rhino horns seized at Africa airport

Mozambican police captured Ho Chien at the southern Maputo International Airport in possession of the horns that weighed 17 kilograms before he boarded an international flight, Senegal’s news website Agence de Presse Africaine reported.

Chien was found wrapping the six in tinfoil in a suitcase and encircled them with garlic in a bid to mask the smell.

Media reports said that the commodities might have come from poached rhinos in South Africa because the animals are believed to be extinct in southern Mozambique.

Last year Mozambican police captured three Vietnamese citizens at another airport when they were trying to smuggle rhino horns out of the country, the news site said.

In early January, Vietnamese police seized a 33-year-old Vietnamese, Ha Chan Chinh, at the Tan Son Nhat International Airport in Ho Chi Minh City right after he arrived from Maputo via Qatar’s Doha. He was illegally transporting six rhino horns weighing 16.5 kilos to Vietnam.

Another 56-year-old Vietnamese was apprehended the same day in Bangkok, Thailand with the same number of rhino horns, smaller in size though, found in his luggage.

The suspect had come from Mozambique and was waiting for a flight to the Vietnamese capital Hanoi.

Vietnam and South Africa signed a deal to protect rhinos late last year against the backdrop that illegal horn trade was reportedly centered in Vietnam, besides China, Taiwan/China, South Korea, Japan, and Yemen.

The World Wildlife Fund says that more than 75% of the world's rhino population is found in the South African nation where poaching is rampant at this time.

A recent WWF report said that Vietnamese hunters are estimated to have paid more than US$22 million to hunt rhinos in South Africa since 2003.

A kilo of rhino horn costs around $65,000 in the black market in Vietnam now, according to the BBC.

Rhino horn can allegedly improve sexual performance and help cure various diseases, including cancer.