Half ton of wriggling wildlife seized from slow boat to Vietnam

Sep 6, 2010, 4:31 GMT

Phnom Penh - Cambodian military police have confiscated almost 500 kilograms of snakes and turtles from a boat headed to Vietnam, national media reported Monday.

Captain Svay Sokha of the military police unit in Kandal province said plainclothes officers had raided the boat near the Vietnamese border late Friday.

'We seized one wooden boat and confiscated 189 kilograms of snakes and 287 kilograms of turtles as the two suspects were taking them onto the boat to smuggle them to Vietnam,' he said, adding that the culprits had managed to slip away.

A member of the local forestry administration's office told the Cambodia Daily newspaper that most of the animals, thought to number in the hundreds, were still alive.

They were handed over to the non-governmental organization Wildlife Alliance, which will release them back into the wild.

Last month Wildlife Alliance and forestry administration officials rescued dozens of turtles and snakes from illegal traders in the tourist town of Siem Reap in north-western Cambodia.

And earlier this year police seized 800 kilograms of turtles that were being taken by taxi to Vietnam. The suspects in that case also managed to elude the law.

Wildlife smuggling from Cambodia to Vietnam is widespread. The animals typically end up in restaurants as the main ingredient in exotic dishes.