Ha Tinh rescues pangolins hidden in truck More than 100 pangolins were found in a truck in Ha Tinh Province yesterday. Photo: Tuoi Tre With the aids of police, customs officers in Ha Tinh Province have caught a truck illegally carrying more than 100 live pangolins, a species of endangered wild animals. At 10 pm December 26, a joint inspection team stopped a suspicious truck on National Highway 8A near the Cau Treo Border Gate for examination, but the truck’s driver ran away after getting off the vehicle, said Ly Trong Ngoc, deputy head of the Sub-department of Customs at the Cau Treo Border Gate Economic Zone. Inspectors immediately examined the truck and found the animals being packed in net bags hidden in the truck’s cabin and trunk. The total weight of the animals was nearly 500 kg. The truck’s driver failed to show inspectors any documents related to the wild animals that are valued at over VND2 billion (US$96,000). According to initial investigations, the animals had been bought in an area in the Vietnam-Laos border and were being transported to northern provinces for sale to restaurants, said the provincial Sub-department of Forest Protection. A similar case happened in the same area on December 11, 2011, when the province’s environmental crime investigation police rescued 106 pangolins carried illegally in a car. The animals weighed nearly 400 kg and are worth over VND1 billion ($48,000). Driver Nguyen Van Ngon and his assistant Do Manh Viet failed to prove the origin of their goods and were arrested. TUOITRENEWS