{UAH} Kenya seizes Uganda's smuggled ivory destined for Turkey

Kenya seizes Uganda's smuggled ivory destined for Turkey

Publish Date: Oct 09, 2013

A Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS) officer numbers elephant ivory tusks on July 3, 2013 after a container destined to Malasyia full of tusks was seized in a private yard in the Changamwe area, having come from Uganda at the ports of Mombasa. PHOTO/AFP

newvision

Kenyan officials have seized more than 1,600 pieces of illegal ivory in the past week weighing almost five tonnes and hidden inside sesame seed sacks destined for Turkey, wildlife officials said.

Poaching has surged across sub-Saharan Africa, where armed criminal gangs are slaughtering elephants to feed Asia's demand for ivory and rhinos whose horns are ground into powder for use in Asian medicines.

"(The ivory) came through the Kenya-Uganda border stashed in sacks, and they were hidden ... in two 40-foot containers," Arthur Tuda, Kenya Wildlife Service's (KWS) officer in charge of Coast region, told reporters late on Tuesday. "Export documents declared the containers as carrying sesame seeds."

The ivory was found in two separate seizures and valued at a total of 97 million shillings ($1.14 million), the largest weekly haul in the past five years.

A customs official said smugglers were increasingly shipping the contraband through countries not normally associated with demand for ivory and rhino horn powder to avoid raising authorities' suspicions.

DNA studies would be conducted to determine where the ivory originated from, KWS said. ($1 = 84.8500 Kenyan shillings) Reuters 

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Gwokto La'Kitgum

"Even a small dog can piss on a tall Building", Jim Hightower

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