French customs officers detained on the border of a huge shipment of smuggled ivory.
The staff of the French customs intercepted the large consignment of ivory during the last decade in the country, it weighed 350 kg, told reporters on Wednesday the head of Department of customs service Helen young Crowley.
“We are dealing with an organized network that destroys the population of African elephants,” said young Crowley.
Customs officers learned about the activities of this group when during the inspection of the car last September, in one of the cars they found four elephant tusks.
The investigation brought them to French-Vietnamese businessman who was hiding 212 kg of ivory in his Paris office.
Then customs officers at a Paris airport detained a man flying from Angola to Vietnam carrying and smuggling ivory 26 tusks weighing 142 kg.
According to media reports, the passenger was sentenced to 18 months in prison and fined 140 thousand euros.
