Feds crack down on rhino horn smuggling ring
Feb 23, 2012, 6:39 AM
LOS ANGELES (AP) – Federal wildlife investigators say they’ve broken up an international smuggling ring that trafficked in sawed-off rhinoceros horns for buyers in Vietnam and China who believe they cure cancer.
The Los Angeles Times (
http://lat.ms/w5x5no) says more than 150 federal agents led raids into homes and businesses in a dozen states over the weekend.
Three of the alleged traffickers caught in Southern California were 49-year-old Jimmy Kha, his 41-year-old girlfriend Mai Nguyen and Kha’s 26-year-old son Felix.
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Director Dan Ashe says officials have shut down a major source of black market rhino horns in the lucrative international trade.
Officials also seized more than $1 million in cash, $1 million in gold bars, diamonds, Rolex watches and 20 rhino horns in the raids.
There was no immediate reply to an email request to the agency for comment.
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Information from: Los Angeles Times,
http://www.latimes.com
(Copyright 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.)
