Johor Customs Department seizes more than RM9mil worth of Guibourtia wood from Zambia at the Tanjung Pelepas port here.
Our Outside source has told our #Team of Analysts that Customs director Datuk Mohammad Hamidan Maryani said that the wood was found in a shipping container that was shipped from Zambia and was headed towards Vietnam.
We received information from our intelligence team on the matter and conducted a check on the shipping container at the port.
“We then found 115 pieces of the wood, weighing about 30,580kg in the container,” he said in a press conference at Menara Kastam here on Tuesday (March 3).
He added that the Guibourtia wood is a controlled commodity under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (Cites) and any transhipment would require an export permit from the exporting country.
Analysis
The wood is worth 2.9 million dollars equivalent to about 30 million Kwacha. Our sources have confirmed to our Team of Analysts that the owners of the confiscated wood belongs to a group of “Politically exposed Persons”.
Embarrassment has hit the Zambian Mission in Malaysia. Waking up to a negative headline about your country in a foreign country.
