$1million Of Endangered Eels Smuggled Onto Plane
- 5 years ago
Airport staff were stunned when they opened three cargo boxes destined for restaurants and found a million pounds worth of endangered EELS.
The large cardboard boxes - weighing more than 700kg - were loaded into the hold on two commercial flights from Romania which arrived in Bangkok, Thailand, on Wednesday (19/12) and yesterday (20/12) morning.
Customs staff at the Suvarnabhumi International Airport opened the packages and found thousands of the small see-through 'glass eels' wriggling around. They said that the shipment of the European eel species Anguilla anguilla - banned from export by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) - was worth 40 million baht (970,000GBP).
Luckily, the creatures were saved before being served up as an expensive delicacy out in one of Thailand's many seafood restaurants.
The large cardboard boxes - weighing more than 700kg - were loaded into the hold on two commercial flights from Romania which arrived in Bangkok, Thailand, on Wednesday (19/12) and yesterday (20/12) morning.
Customs staff at the Suvarnabhumi International Airport opened the packages and found thousands of the small see-through 'glass eels' wriggling around. They said that the shipment of the European eel species Anguilla anguilla - banned from export by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) - was worth 40 million baht (970,000GBP).
Luckily, the creatures were saved before being served up as an expensive delicacy out in one of Thailand's many seafood restaurants.