Thai Customs Seize Two Tonnes Of Ivory At Suvarnabhumi Airport

[webfact]

Thai customs seize two tonnes of ivory

BANGKOK: -- (AFP) - Thai customs officials seized more than two tonnes of ivory being stored at Bangkok's main international airport en route from Dubai to Laos, a customs department statement said Thursday.

The officials, acting on a tip-off, searched a transit cargo warehouse at Suvarnabhumi airport on Wednesday evening and found 239 elephant tusks, the statement said.

The haul, weighing 2,075 kilos (4,600 pounds), has a sale value of 120 million baht (3.6 million dollars), it said. No arrests have been made in connection with the seizure.

The shipment flown on an Emirates flight from Dubai had been declared as telecommunications equipment and was due to be flown on to Laos, which borders Thailand.

-- ©Copyright AFP 2010-02-25

Published with written approval from AFP.

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[MSingh]

Excuse my Idiocy/Naiveity but why would Elephants Tusks, & lots of them, be going from Dubai to Laos ??

[Richie1971]

Excuse my Idiocy/Naiveity but why would Elephants Tusks, & lots of them, be going from Dubai to Laos ??

Via Africa?

[Richie1971]

Excuse my Idiocy/Naiveity but why would Elephants Tusks, & lots of them, be going from Dubai to Laos ??

Via Africa?

Sorry, having looked at my reply it seems a little abrupt.

Ivory from Africa shipped from the horn of Africa to Dubai and flown here and onto Laos for the Chinese to make magic medicine or something.

If I was smuggling something in that quantity I would figure that a flight from Dubai would attract a lot less attention (ie Customs checks) than a flight from Africa - no racism implied

Edited February 25, 2010 by Richie1971

[jdinasia]

To be carved? to be transshipped once again to Myanmar as payment for drugs? Because someone in Laos wants ivory?

[RKASA]

Excuse my Idiocy/Naiveity but why would Elephants Tusks, & lots of them, be going from Dubai to Laos ??

Via Africa?

Low road to China

[ManilaLover]

Excuse my Idiocy/Naiveity but why would Elephants Tusks, & lots of them, be going from Dubai to Laos ??

Perhaps in Laos no more elephants left !

Domesticated elephants poached for ivory, Sayaboury province Lao PDR

With less than 1000 wild and 560 domesticated elephants remaining in Laos, poaching is a very serious threat to the entire elephant population. The interrelationship between wild and domestic elephants is still very strong in Laos, with poaching directly affecting the survival of both populations.

source

[moskito]

Excuse my Idiocy/Naiveity but why would Elephants Tusks, & lots of them, be going from Dubai to Laos ??

I guess its brought overland from Kenya, Tanzania or another African country to Dubai, check the African Map out, its closer as you think and undoubtfully a customs officer at a border can be bribed easier as one on the airport or harbour.

Whish the Asians should STOP to dream about some medicine which makes 80 y.o. men stalliond again

Edited February 25, 2010 by moskito

[tooninthai]

I feel for the elephants in this case. So many of these wonderful beasts died for this shipment.

Well done the Thai Customs for stopping this shipment.

[mxyz250newb]

next question is...what are they going to do with all that ivory?

[TPI]

next question is...what are they going to do with all that ivory?

"Thai Customs" "What are they going to do with it???"

Sell it and split the money of course!

[Colabamumbai]

Excuse my Idiocy/Naiveity but why would Elephants Tusks, & lots of them, be going from Dubai to Laos ??

Via Africa?

Sorry, having looked at my reply it seems a little abrupt.

Ivory from Africa shipped from the horn of Africa to Dubai and flown here and onto Laos for the Chinese to make magic medicine or something.

If I was smuggling something in that quantity I would figure that a flight from Dubai would attract a lot less attention (ie Customs checks) than a flight from Africa - no racism implied

And most of the narcotics coming into Thailand are also coming from Dubai, obviously they are not using xray machines or dogs on outbound luggage.

[elcent]

Over 50% of money laundered to terrorist is handled by Dubai banks. Still sleeping?

[MSingh]

Excuse my Idiocy/Naiveity but why would Elephants Tusks, & lots of them, be going from Dubai to Laos ??

Via Africa?

Sorry, having looked at my reply it seems a little abrupt.

Ivory from Africa shipped from the horn of Africa to Dubai and flown here and onto Laos for the Chinese to make magic medicine or something.

If I was smuggling something in that quantity I would figure that a flight from Dubai would attract a lot less attention (ie Customs checks) than a flight from Africa - no racism implied

Of course, China, yeah...

Thanks for clarifying..

[eldar1]

I'm always saddened to hear that even in 2010 and with the advent of perfectly working ED drugs like viagra, there are still people that find it neccesary to slaughter innocent endangered animals purely for a small part of their anatomy to enhance their sex drive. More should be done to stop this practice unfortunately voters don't care about things like this so law enforcement just doesn't really do much about it.

[shawndoc]

Same here. Why do you need to digest ground ivory or powdered tiger penis, when there's Cialis, Viagra, and a bundle of other drugs that actually work.

[moetownblues]

Excuse my Idiocy/Naiveity but why would Elephants Tusks, & lots of them, be going from Dubai to Laos ??

I guess its brought overland from Kenya, Tanzania or another African country to Dubai, check the African Map out, its closer as you think and undoubtfully a customs officer at a border can be bribed easier as one on the airport or harbour.

Whish the Asians should STOP to dream about some medicine which makes 80 y.o. men stalliond again

It's called viagra and old floppy frangs like it also

[Naam]

Excuse my Idiocy/Naiveity but why would Elephants Tusks, & lots of them, be going from Dubai to Laos ??

I guess its brought overland from Kenya, Tanzania or another African country to Dubai, check the African Map out, its closer as you think and undoubtfully a customs officer at a border can be bribed easier as one on the airport or harbour.

Whish the Asians should STOP to dream about some medicine which makes 80 y.o. men stalliond again

overland? crossing the Red Sea via a bridge? transporting it across Saudi Arabia to Dubai?

ivory is not used for "medicine" in Asia but for intricate carvings which fetch a high price especially in China and Japan.

[shawndoc]

ivory is not used for "medicine" in Asia but for intricate carvings which fetch a high price especially in China and Japan.

Ah, confused it with Rhinoceros horn.

[Spee]

ivory is not used for "medicine" in Asia but for intricate carvings which fetch a high price especially in China and Japan.

It is also further smuggled into western nations where the only legal ivory is so-called "estate ivory" (from elephants killed before anti-poaching legislation). But as the amount of estate ivory is consumed with inlays and ornaments, and the demand for ivory increases, there's only one place to get it.

The slaughter of animals for nothing other than tusks is one thing, but unfortunately it's only a very small part of a much larger picture, that has resulted from a continent largely consumed with brutal dictatorships, genocidal tribal warfare and lack of economic development due to enviro-wacko activism, all of which leave many people very little opportunity to fend for themselves within any sort of legal trades. The path to alleviating such animal cruelty is to first alleviate the human cruelty which exists on a far greater scale.

For what it's worth, as bad as this episode is, it is nothing compared to how things once were. Consider the case of something as simple as a billiard ball. In the days before phenolics, most billiard balls were carved from ivory tusks. A complete set of snooker balls would typically require the deaths of 3-5 elephants depending on the size and quality of the tusks.

[gosompoi]

China has a high demand for the illegal ivy trade. Laos is a smugglers route to China since the two countries share a mostly unguarded tropical jungle border.

[tonglen]

Anyone with the remotest, slightest inkling that has anything to do with this should have their ivory carved. And by carved I mean having their teeth pulled one by one at the airport. After a while these repeat offender poachers would be easy to identify.

Crimes against animals and children, the last two known bastions of innocence, should be met with death.

[TAWP]

Anyone with the remotest, slightest inkling that has anything to do with this should have their ivory carved. And by carved I mean having their teeth pulled one by one at the airport. After a while these repeat offender poachers would be easy to identify.

Crimes against animals and children, the last two known bastions of innocence, should be met with death.

Quoted for funny profile pic ref.

[Spalpeen]

Just thinking out loud here. If it's possible to load TWO TONNES of elephant tusks onto an aircraft at Dubai and declare it as electronics components then it wouldn't be too hard to get a bomb on board either. Anyone here ever travel through Dubai?

Edited February 27, 2010 by Spalpeen

[Spee]

Anyone here ever travel through Dubai?

It's called "bakshish," an accepted way of doing business in Arab cultures, a bribe in Western cultures. This "custom" may be part of the problem, but it really isn't part of the solution.

[Bagwan]

Declared as telecommunications equipment? Bribery? Corruption? Money laundering?

A flight of fancy maybe but a certain somebody living in Dubai comes to mind.