Vietnam customs seize 1.2 tonnes of elephant ivory hidden in timber

Three months after leaving an inland port far up the Congo River, a consignment of timber arrived in Vietnam this summer concealing a secret it would take customs officials three weeks to uncover: nearly 1.2 tonnes of elephant ivory, smuggled halfway across the world.

Tracking data reviewed by This Week in Asia shows the shipment travelled some 9,000 nautical miles (16,700km) – with stops in Sri Lanka and Singapore – before reaching Quy Nhon, a port on Vietnam’s central coast.

Custom officers were tipped off to the contraband, sealed inside hidden compartments with wax, by port scanners that flagged hollow cavities in the timber.

On August 6, they drilled into the hollowed-out logs and found 221 pieces of sawn tusk, most likely destined for China and potentially worth millions of US dollars.

Port authorities called it the largest seizure on record for Quy Nhon, yet it was far from the first time smuggled ivory was uncovered at a Vietnamese port.

Between 2009 and 2018 alone, some 56 tonnes of ivory were seized in Vietnam, according to international NGO the Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA), with a further 20 tonnes linked to the country seized elsewhere.