Deutsche Presse-Agentur
Phnom Penh - Cambodian police acting on a tipoff have rescued an eclectic array of protected species from the cooking pot, including three macaque monkeys, 15 pythons and 32 wild pigs, an official said Wednesday.
Chief of economic police in central Kandal province, Ek Korn, said the animals were being held on a farm just south of the capital while the pigs, which weighed up to 50 kilos each, were being fattened up for the table.
'We believe they were going to be transported to Vietnam, mostly to be eaten,' he said.
Instead the animals were now in the safe custody of environment officials while it was decided where and how to release them, he said.
He said police had not charged a teenager who was guarding the animals at the time of the bust, because he was just an employee and didn't know that keeping the animals without a permit was a crime.
Instead they were seeking a man called Son Socheat, 35, who fled the home before he could be questioned.
Cambodia has been identified by a number of non-government agencies as a primary supplier of protected animals for the lucrative wild meat and traditional medicine markets of Vietnam and China especially.
The bust was the second in a week after police, assisted by members of the organization Conservation International, last Friday nabbed four men in the central province of Pursat and charged them with trying to transport the meat of protected deer and the remains of a dangerously rare tiger.
Wildlife smuggling carries a stiff jail sentence as Cambodia attempts to discourage people from selling off its dwindling wildlife reserves.
Chief of economic police in central Kandal province, Ek Korn, said the animals were being held on a farm just south of the capital while the pigs, which weighed up to 50 kilos each, were being fattened up for the table.
'We believe they were going to be transported to Vietnam, mostly to be eaten,' he said.
Instead the animals were now in the safe custody of environment officials while it was decided where and how to release them, he said.
He said police had not charged a teenager who was guarding the animals at the time of the bust, because he was just an employee and didn't know that keeping the animals without a permit was a crime.
Instead they were seeking a man called Son Socheat, 35, who fled the home before he could be questioned.
Cambodia has been identified by a number of non-government agencies as a primary supplier of protected animals for the lucrative wild meat and traditional medicine markets of Vietnam and China especially.
The bust was the second in a week after police, assisted by members of the organization Conservation International, last Friday nabbed four men in the central province of Pursat and charged them with trying to transport the meat of protected deer and the remains of a dangerously rare tiger.
Wildlife smuggling carries a stiff jail sentence as Cambodia attempts to discourage people from selling off its dwindling wildlife reserves.
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