Vietnamese man arrested at JKIA with five pieces of rhino horns

By Standard Digital Reporter

NAIROBI; KENYA: A Vietnamese man has been arrested at Jomo Kenyatta International Airport (JKIA) for trying to smuggle five pieces of rhino horns weighing 20.1kg out of Kenya.

The 29-year-old man, Le Manh Cuong was on transit from Maputo, Mozambique en-route to Hong Kong via Doha, Qatar on Tuesday afternoon when a joint security team comprising of the Kenya Airports Police Unit, Customs officials, Kenya Airport Authority officials, Kenya Airways officials and the Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS) officials detected and seized the contraband.

The pieces of rhino were packed in a hand-drawn suit case stuffed with mattresses cuttings to disguise it.

According to Kenya Wildlife Service, preliminary investigations revealed that Cuong had disembarked a KQ749 flight from Maputo and was scheduled to board a Qatar Airways flight QR535 from Nairobi to Doha and later connect to Hong Kong aboard a QR614 flight.

The suspect has been booked at the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport Police Station awaiting arraignment at Makadara Law Courts on Wednesday.

Last month a Chinese national was sentenced to serve a total of two and half years in jail after being convicted over charges relating to smuggling ivory from the country by a Nairobi court.

39 foreigners, including nine Vietnamese and 19 Chinese nationals, have been arrested smuggling illegal wildlife products out of the country this year.

KWS has up-scaled Kenya’s ports surveillance in recent days to reign on smugglers of illicit consignments of wildlife products.