BEIJING: A hawksbill turtle smuggling case was detected by Shenzhen Customs District a few days ago. Anti-smuggling Customs officers said on June 25 this year, in a raid upon a wooden fishing boat on the Dayawan seas to the east of Guangdong Province, they found 5,312 pieces of might-be Scutes of Carapace of hawksbill turtle which were hidden in the segment of the small boat.
These Scutes of Carapace, Customs officers said, were confirmed preliminarily by the uncovering Center of Nanjing Normal University as Scutes of Carapace of hawksbill turtle (an endangered species under State Ⅱ protection) The 3 suspects on the boat were arrested and a Lin, the principal suspect behind the scene was also caught by Customs, said Customs officers. Later these pieces of carapace, with a weight of 105 kilograms, were recognized by the Bureau of Fisheries of Ministry of Agriculture as parts of 408 hawksbill turtles and were estimated to have a street value of RMB 7.344 million (calculated according to the value of a parent hawksbill).
