Smuggling of elephant tusks foiled

The Bureau of Customs at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (BOC-NAIA) presented yesterday 857 kilos of ivory elephant tusks from Nairobi, Kenya misdeclared as "rough stones" from two shipments seized in separate operations last September.

Ricardo Belmonte, BOC-NAIA district collector, said the foiled smuggling of the elephant tusks came after the seizure of two shipments of 324 kilos and then 523 kilos of the supposed rough stones last Sept. 17 and 26 with one consignee identified as Cicero Remoroza, with address at 38 Dividends street, GSIS Village, Project 8, Quezon City.

Belmonte said the Sept. 17 confiscation was made when BoC-NAIA Special Agent I Marcela Judy Teano, chief of the Paircargo warehouse BOC detachment, received a tip from an informant that four steel boxes on board Emirates Flight EK- 722 last Sept. 15 contained contraband.

The shipper was identified as one Ben Odari of Nairobi, Kenya.

Acting on the information, Teano, with Customs police officials led by Major Haydee Posadas, NAIA-BOC police district commander; Capt. Mariano Biteng, deputy district commander; Special Agent I Regino Tuason, special operations chief; enforced a hold order on the shipment and subsequent inspection confirmed that it contained elephant tusks.

Biteng said that the shipment of the elephant tusks violated international laws against the trafficking of endangered species and their products especially the Convention on International Trade of Endangered Species (CITES).

For his part, Tuason said he immediately had the consignee Remoroza, quietly placed under their watchlist, after the Sept. 17 confiscation.

Last Sept. 25, another shipment for Remoroza of supposed rough stones arrived also from an Emirates flight.

Due to the alert on all shipments for Remoroza, Teano said they immediately ordered the second consignment held and detained. Subsequent inspection confirmed that it again contained elephant tusks.

BOC-NAIA police officials yesterday opened a total of seven steel boxes of the two separate shipments and in an inspection of the tusks noted that they were apparently taken from young elephants.