Kenyan police seize 8 kg of ivory in Mombasa

MOMBASA, Kenya, May 16 — Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS) rangers on Thursday nabbed eight pieces of ivory concealed in a maize sack and arrested two suspects at a bus station in Mombasa city.

Mombasa police commander Johnstone Ipara said the pieces weighing about 8 kilograms were hidden inside a sack full of maize to disguise as a maize consignment.

“We have laws protecting our animals and we will not allow anybody to think that they can kill animals and get away with it,” Ipara told journalists in Mombasa.
He said that the ivory was nabbed after police staged a trap and arrested the two suspects and seized their consignment as they were alighting from a public bus from Kitale, Western Kenya.
The suspects will be arraigned in court on Friday. The size of the seized ivory shows that they were poached from relatively young elephants.
Arthur Tuda, Coast Conservation area KWS assistant director hinted that the ivory could have been poached from Mt Elgon.
“Mombasa is a favorite destination and meeting point for animal part traffickers,” Tuda said
The Kenya’s second largest city, which hosts East Africa’s largest port, is used both as a destination and transit route for smugglers of illegal animal parts. – xinhua