Four-hour Toil Unearthed Record Pangolin Haul

Customs officials said on Friday that it took hours of painstaking efforts to break past a wall of frozen meat and ice to unearth a record haul of pangolin scales that was shipped from Nigeria and was headed to Vietnam.

On Thursday, officials had announced that in the biggest ever haul in Hong Kong, 8.3 tonnes of pangolin scales – which wildlife experts said would come from nearly 14,000 pangolins – and 2.1 tonnes of ivory tusks were seized.

Revealing details of the operation, officials said the haul worth HK$62 million was found at the Kwai Chung container port in mid-January.

The officers said they had received a tip-off from mainland authorities and decided to inspect the shipping container which the shippers had declared contained frozen meat.

Though an X-ray scan showed some irregularities in the container, when they opened it, all they could see was frozen meat and ice.

Officials said it took them four hours to crack this open and they eventually found the buried pangolin scales and ivory.

It was the largest seizure of pangolin scales on record, and the third largest case of smuggled ivory tusks in a decade.

Yueng Ka-yan, the head of ports and maritime command, said this is the first time that officers had come across such an ingenious method used to conceal wildlife products.

This method also helped hide the smell of pangolin scales, which usually alerts inspectors, officials said.

Officers arrested the 39-year-old male owner and a 29-year-old female employee of a trading company in Mong Kok, after learning from shipping records that they were the handlers of the smuggled goods.

The investigations are ongoing, and officers were still looking into whether Vietnam was the final intended destination of the container.

Despite the scale of the seizure, Wan Hing-chuen, the head of Custom's syndicate crimes investigation bureau, said Hong Kong is not a transit hub for the illegal trade.

He said it's common for smugglers to deliver such goods by choosing less direct routes and Hong Kong just happened to be picked this time.