LONDON: Sun Liu 51 year old wife of a Chinese doctor tried to smuggle banned rhino horn into the UK, a court heard.
She was also caught with bear bile and prohibited plant extracts used in Chinese medicines as she passed through customs at Heathrow Airport, a jury heard.
Liu was living with her husband Xiao Guang Gao above the Chinese Herbal Centre in Cardiff Road, Caerphilly, at the time, Newport Crown Court heard.
The Crown Prosecution Service alleges she tried to smuggle the ground rhino horn because she “feared it could be intercepted” if it was shipped by mail order.
Liu, who now lives in Haydons Road, Wimbledon, southwest London, denies three counts of importing prohibited goods through the airport in July 2012.
Taking the stand today, Liu said she did not know that boxes of medicines she had brought back from China for her husband contained banned ingredients.
Liu, speaking through an interpreter, said: “I didn’t hide them among the medicines because I didn’t know they were prohibited.”
Jeffrey Jones, for the prosecution, read extracts from statements which suggested that she had told customs she had nothing to declare.
But Liu denied having said that to customs and Mr Jones then put to her the officer must have lied.
Liu told the jury she had difficulty communicating in English and indicated there may have been misunderstandings with the custom officers.
But Mr Jones alleged that she was trying to make out she was “simple-minded” and added she was being “dishonest”.
Giving evidence her husband told Newport Crown Court she did not have any medical knowledge and only acted as a receptionist at the Caerphilly medical centre.
