Vietnam man charged with tiger smuggling

Nov 16, 2010, 9:32 GMT

Hanoi - Police in Vietnam filed charges against a man they said was part of a ring smuggling frozen tiger carcasses through the port of Haiphong, a police official said Tuesday.

Pham Hai Nam, 39, was detained Sunday in Hanoi while driving a station wagon with a 150-kilogram frozen tiger carcass in the back, said Nguyen Van Thanh, deputy head of the police department in Hanoi's Dong Da district.

'Police have handed over the tiger carcass to the National Museum of Nature for preservation and research,' Thanh said.

Police said they tracked Nam through information on a tiger-smuggling ring discovered in Haiphong in mid-October.

Police said Nam confessed to buying the tiger carcass for 30,000 dollars from a supplier in Haiphong and intended to sell it in Hanoi for 45,000 dollars.

If unable to sell it, he planned to boil it down to medicinal tiger paste, which sells for up to 10,000 dollars per kilogram.

An officer who participated in the arrest but who gave his name only as Hai said the tigers trafficked by the ring had originated in foreign countries.

If found guilty, Nam faces up to three years in prison.

Illegal trafficking in tigers, monkeys and other rare animals is widespread in Vietnam and China, where their bones and other body parts are often used in traditional medicine.

Last month, Vietnamese police seized a cache of about 600 kilograms of bones of rare animals, including tigers and elephants, in Hanoi.

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