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E-mailA Philippine wildlife official has been missing since a bureau inspection Friday showed that 794 kilograms of smuggled ivory elephant tusks worth P3 million ($80,000) was unaccounted for, Agence France-Presse reports.
The official's recent lavish purchases of a vehicle and house aroused suspicion from his colleagues. “Somebody had observed that this guy had lots of money. So we…checked our treasuries,” Josie de Leon, head of the Protected Areas and Wildlife Bureau’s (PAWB) wildlife division, told AFP.
Dr. Mundita Lim, PAWB director, said the inspection Friday was prompted by reports that some tusks may have been taken from the storage facility. The tusks were stored at the Ninoy Aquino Parks and Wildlife Nature Center in Quezon City.
Lim said she had seen photographs of the house. She declined to reveal the suspect’s name as not to impede investigations.
Lim added that only two PAWB staff members had access to the storage area, and that there was no sign of forcible entry. The park superintendent has been missing since the inspection Friday.
The tusks were part of a 4,456-kilo shipment seized in May 2009 at the South Harbor by the Bureau of Customs, which then turned them over to the Department of Natural Resources, Environment Secretary Horacio Ramos told The Philippine Daily Inquirer.
PAWB director Lim, on the other hand, told the AP that the ivory shipment was impounded at Manila airport in July then turned over to the bureau. The Philippines is a “trans-shipment point, or a place where these ivory pieces are processed before they get released into the black market,” Lim added.
Ramos told the inquirer that he has ordered the filing of administrative charges against the PAWB park superintendent for grave misconduct and conduct grossly prejudicial to the best interest of the service.
A Tanzanian delegation is due to arrive in the country next week to check if the tusks originated from the East African nation.
The 1989 U.N. Convention on International Trade of Endangered Species banned the trade of ivory and helped hasten recovery of the elephant population in Africa.
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