HUANGGANG Customs seized 10 kilograms of pangolin scales smuggled by a Hong Kong woman who crossed the border from Hong Kong to Shenzhen at the Futian Checkpoint on Monday, the Shenzhen Evening News reported yesterday.

    The middle-aged woman, who brought two black plastic bags with her, was stopped by customs officers at the checkpoint at around 6 p.m. Monday.

    The woman claimed that there were decoration materials in her plastic bags, but after the officers cut open two packages wrapped in yellow tape inside her bags, they found 10 kilograms of pangolin scales.

    The woman said that she had been paid 350 yuan (US$50.84) by someone to bring the packages across the border, but that she had no idea what was inside the packages.

    The spokesperson for Huanggang Customs said that pangolins have been hunted and smuggled for a long time because of their supposed medical value. He said that each pangolin usually provides only 0.4 kilograms of scales, which meant that 25 pangolins might have been killed for the 10 kilograms of scales.

    The pangolin has been labeled as an endangered species since 1994 by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES). As the number of pangolins has been dropping sharply around the world in recent years, CITES has banned all trade of pangolins across the globe.

    The investigation of the case continues. (Zhang Yang)