Straits Times 13 Dec 10;
NAIROBI: Two Singaporeans were arrested in Kenya after they were suspected of smuggling raw elephant ivory out of the country.
John Yap Chan Seng, 48, and Nah Choon Quee, 47, were checking in at Jomo Kenyatta International Airport in Nairobi on Friday night for a midnight Kenya Airways flight headed for Bangkok, when they were reportedly found with 92kg of illegal ivory.
The duo were detained by the Kenya Wildlife Service, but one of them was released on Saturday, reported CNN. It is not clear which of the two was released.
Yap, who lives with his family in a flat in Redhill, is said to have been jobless for a few weeks before this.
His eldest brother, Desmond, told The Straits Times that his brother told the family he was going to Thailand and left Singapore last Monday.
He added that his brother had been working in casinos in Malaysia and Macau, but lost his job a while ago.
His elderly parents still do not know about their son's arrest.
Kenya Wildlife Service's corporate communications manager, Mr Paul Udoto, said the authorities made the arrest after sniffer dogs found ivory in four suitcases.
Mr Udoto added on Saturday that Yap and Nah had travelled from Lilongwe, Malawi, and stayed in Kenya for two days.
The man still being held is expected to be arraigned before the Makadara Law Courts in Nairobi on Tuesday.
Kenya has long been trying to clamp down on the poaching and trafficking of rhino horn and elephant ivory, which have risen in recent months. The high demand for ivory has decimated elephant populations in Africa.
Estimates by nature conservation body WWF suggest that the population of African elephants in the 1930s and 1940s - some three million to five million - has dropped as a result of the ivory trade. The elephant population in Kenya alone is believed to have plummeted by 85 per cent between 1973 and 1989.
'Globally there is an increased demand, so there is a strong motivation for people to kill elephants and rhino,' Mr Udoto was quoted as saying by CNN.
Anti-poaching efforts have helped to slow down the trend, although demand for elephant ivory and rhino horn - especially in Asia - continues to threaten animal populations in Africa.
Kenya's canine unit has chalked up several high-profile ivory confiscations and arrests in recent months.
'We need to be more aggressive with poachers and traffickers to stop this problem,' Mr Udoto told CNN.
XINHUA
Additional reporting by Ben Nadarajan
