The Hong Kong Customs and Excise Department have made the year’s biggest seizure of pangolin scales, finding 1000 kg of the contraband (estimated to have come from 50,000 pangolins) along with 13kg of dried snake gall bladders in a shipping container from Indonesia.

The consignment had been declared as carrying dead fish when it arrived from Jakarta around two weeks ago. After removing more than 1,000 bags of frozen fish from the container, Customs Officers found over 40 bags containing pangolin scales, along with one bag of dried snake gall bladders.

The seizure, estimated to be worth HK$6.2 million, was believed to be bound for a New Territories warehouse so it could be thereafter smuggled into Mainland China to be utilised in traditional Chinese medicine.

So far, no arrests have been made but investigations are currently under way, with arrests possible.

This seizure of pangolin scales was the second for Hong Kong Customs this year after a small quantity had been confiscated earlier in the year. In the first nine months of 2019, Hong Kong Customs seized 8.7 tonnes of pangolin scales, in a total of 11 cases, with an estimated combined street value of Hk$43 million.

Under the Protection of Endangered Species of Animals and Plants Ordinance, Cap 586, the maximum penalty of importing or exporting an endangered species without a licence is 10 years in jail and a HK$10 million fine.

[Commentary] The continued organised nature of wildlife crime.

Hong Kong continues to be a major transit hub for smuggled wildlife, including pangolins, serving as a gateway from neighbouring Asian and African countries into Mainland China.

All eight species of pangolins are currently listed under Appendix I of CITES, which means all commercial trade of the animal is banned. In Hong Kong, Cap 586 gives effect to CITES. The legislative amendments made to Cap 586 to implement the amendments to Appendices I and II, including the up-listing of all eight species of pangolins to Appendix I, came into effect on 1 November 2018.

Despite legislative protections, there still remains a distinct lack of deterrence, especially as we continue to see the scale of the shipments of illegal wildlife moving in an alarmingly large and upward trend. This suggests that well-resourced criminal syndicates are behind and operating the illegal wildlife trade. Paying for, collecting and transporting large quantities of pangolin products entails great upfront investment and co-ordination. It also means that traffickers of wildlife are not at all concerned about interception by local law enforcement as they move multi-tonne shipments worth millions of dollars.

Despite being a wildlife trafficking hub, Hong Kong still does not recognise, treat nor identify wildlife crime as ‘serious’ or ‘organised’ under the Organised and Serious Crimes Ordinance, Cap 455 (“OSCO”), and thus the enhanced powers under OSCO to investigate “organised crime” cannot be used by the responsible law enforcement agencies. As a consequence, law enforcement continue only to focus on seizures and import/export offences rather than investigating the organised criminal network behind the trafficking.

In order to effectively police illegal wildlife trade, it is imperative that Cap 586 offences be included in Schedule 1 of OSCO. The precision and wide investigative powers offered by OSCO will ensure the real perpetrators of wildlife crime can be investigated and prosecuted.

Main source: SCMP