Rental transportation of nearly 1kg of suspected rhinoceros horn

The suspected items

On the night of October 12, 2016 the Supervision Team under the Integrated Control Station of km15 Dan Tien Pier inspected a Huyndai passenger vehicle of the Ka Long company, of 44 berths with the licence plate No.14B-00166 at the checkpoints.

The Customs officers of the Station required all the passengers get off the vehicle for a body search and search of the vehicle, and detected Mr. Tran Van Sy, born in 1987 and Mr.To Xuan Hien born in 1987 (residing Thuy Ung Hamlet, Hoa Binh Commune, Thuong Tin District, Hanoi), each person was carrying a brown leather bag with suspicious signs.

The Supervision Team required Mr. Tran Van Sy to open the bag for inspecting and found inside the bag had a black grey round cylindrical object, weighing about 0.9kg, 13cm tall, 13.5cm diameter x 10cm suspected as rhinoceros horn.

Mr.To Xuan Hien claimed that he was hired to transport for A Kiem (the Chinese man) the rhinoceros horn as mentioned above from Bac Luan Bridge, Mong Cai City, Quang Ninh province to Hanoi with the price of transportation of 3 million vnd.

After receiving the rhino horn, Mr.To Xuan Hien and Mr.Tran Van Sy went to the Parking place of Mong Cai City to take the vehicle to Hanoi and both of them were detected and arrested by the functional force at the checkpoints under the Integrated Control Station of km15 Dan Tien Pier.

Arrests for import of 4 rhinoceros horns hidden in milk powder cans

Realizing the sophisticated and criminal signs of the incident and having had many perpetrators joining this offence, it needed to be investigated and identified. The items were suspected to be rhinoceros horn on the list of Annex I of CITES that are endangered, rare and protected.

Currently, the functional forces are in coordination with relevant forces to take the samples for verification.