Vietnam to destroy 1 ton of live cats, chicken smuggled in from China
Customs officers in the northern province of Quang Ninh said on July 14 they will destroy around half a ton each of cats and chickens they seized from two trucks and which they suspected were smuggled from China.
They found the cats at around midnight on July 12 and the chickens the next morning.
Neither driver could produce any documents for the consignments, and the officers thought they were smuggled in to supply restaurants.
The drivers said they had merely been hired to carry the animals and did not know their origins.
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The animals could have fetched VND45 million, or more than US$2,000.
But Vietnamese laws stipulate that illegal goods should be destroyed by crushing or burning.
The country’s biggest markets for cat meat are in Thai Binh and Nam Dinh Provinces, where it is still considered by some as a delicacy and served at festive occasions like wedding parties.
In January last year a huge cat smuggling case shocked the nation after the Hanoi police stopped a truck carrying three tons of cats, all alive, from China.
The animals, which were to be sold to restaurants in northern Vietnam, were culled.
