Vietnamese citizen arrested at Maputo airport with rhino horns

By Jorge Joaquim

A Vietnamese woman is under police custody in Maputo after a foiled attempt on Monday to smuggle five rhino horns and 162 lion teeth and claws out of Mozambique. The 30 year old Vietnamese woman, had been living in Maputo for about a year, and she was about to board a departing international flight with the illicit wildlife trophies, intending to return to Vietnam.

But the sniffer dogs of the security scheme set up at Maputo International Airport found the presence of the banned substances after screening the passengers’ luggage.

The woman will be submitted to further questioning in order to obtain more details about where she obtained the rhino horns and lion claws.

Both species of African rhinos, the black and the white, are believed to be extinct in southern Mozambique. It is thus likely that the horns came from animals poached elsewhere in the region, perhaps in neigbouring South Africa.