Moz police seize rhino horns and cash in Maputo

[Richprins]

MAPUTO – Media reported on Friday that police announced the arrest of four men suspected of poaching rhino, the seizure of 4,6 kilograms of rhino horn, and the recovery of $93 500 and R2 400 in cash.

Four cellphones were also seized as well as two South African passports. Reporters working for Soico Television, a private television station in Maputo, spoke to the police station commander, Mr Orlandon Mudumane, about the incident.

He confirmed the arrest of two Mozambicans and two South Koreans living in South Africa, and said that a team comprising customs, detectives, and the agriculture ministry was working on the case.

The team will try to discover where the seized money came from as well as investigate calls made to and from the cellphones. “It is suspected that such large sums of money are usually the product of poaching. It shows that our city is on the smuggling route from South Africa to China and Vietnam,” Mudumane said.

Mozambique’s’ ministry of environment and tourism said in March that both species of African rhino, black and white, were believed to be extinct in southern Mozambique.

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It is believed that the horn seized almost certainly came from a rhino poached in the Kruger National Park.

All four accused are remanded in custody at the Maputo central police station.

In a separate incident in the capital of Vietnam, Hanoi, 31 rhino horn were confiscated by police in Nghê An province. Police discovered the horns on Saturday.

Two Vietnamese men, both aged 32, were arrested and remanded at the Hanoi police headquarters. The horns were found in three bags at a railway station.

Most of the world’s rhino are found in southern Africa. On Sunday government said that the poaching of these animals increased by 18 per cent in the first four months of this year, compared with the same period last year.

This is very significant and rare in Moz!

[Alf]

It shows that our city is on the smuggling route from South Africa to China and Vietnam,” Mudumane said

Do they only realize that now??