Mozambique: Two Ivory Traffickers Arrested

Maputo — Mozambique’s National Criminal Investigation Service (Sernic) has announced that on Tuesday it aborted an attempted sale of two elephant tusks in Pemba, capital of the northern province of Cabo Delgado.

According to the Cabo Delgado provincial spokesperson for Sernic, Neomia Joao, cited in Friday’s issue of the independent newsheet “Carta de Mocambique’, the tusks were being sold for 88,000 meticais (about 1,400 US dollars, at the current exchange rate), or 3,000 meticais a kilo.

The two tusks, which seem to have come from the same animal, weighed 15 and 14 kilos.

Two people were arrested for trying to sell the ivory, and the case has been remitted to the local branch of the Public Prosecutor’s Office. The two traffickers arrived in Pemba from Palma district, although it is not yet clear whether the elephant was killed in Palma.

One of the men arrested confirmed to reporters that he had transported the tusks from Palma, intending to sell them in Pemba.