Seventeen Rhino horns seized in Mozambique town

The Mozambican police last week seized 17 rhinoceros horns in the southern city of Matola.

The horns were in a Toyota Land Cruiser which was supposedly being driven to the northern city of Pemba. They were hidden inside the lining of the vehicle's boot.

Three men were arrested. They claimed to know nothing of the rhino horns. One man said that some Vietnamese friends had brought him from Pemba to Maputo to pick up the Toyota and drive it back to Pemba.

Several revent attempts to smuggle rhino horn through Maputo have been detected and so the smugglers may be trying to use other airports in Mozambique

Since the rhinoceros is extinct in southern Mozambique, it is more than likely that the 17 horns were taken from rhinos poached in South Africa's Kruger National Park.

Good - but Mozambique still hasn't satisfied the CITIES requirements in terms of its anto rhino horn smuggling action plan, and needs to do much more about this and also about elephant ivory poaching in Niassa National Park.