Mozambique police seize 10 kg of rhino horns

More than 10 kilograms of rhino horns ready for embarking in the Maputo International Airport were seized by police on Saturday, said the spokesperson of Maputo city police, Orlando Madumane, on Monday.

The seizure is just few weeks after airport authorities in Malaysia discovered 18 rhino horns coming from Maputo in an operation. The continuous unveiling of rhino horns' smuggling in the capital city of Mozambique indicates that the slaughtering of endangered species such as elephants and rhinos is still going on in this country.

The police's struggle to stop this practice remains far from succeeding as the criminal network gets more and more sophisticated. This time the suitcase in which the horns were found had no identity, let alone left any clue for the police to find out the destination of the product.

"The owner of the suitcase ran away soon after realizing that the police had found out the content inside, now we are investigating to identify the owner of the product," said Madumane.

The police admits that slaughters and the entire chain are adopting cunning tricks, since they find it hard to explain how the smugglers successfully get the suitcases checked in when observing the whole process and then run away after the content is found out.

Mozambique and South Africa in 2016 created a commission to harmonize the legislation of both countries when dealing with this matter, to make the legal framework much tougher for an effective fight against poachers. Endit