KUALA LUMPUR, Aug. 2 (Xinhua) -- Malaysian authorities said Wednesday that officials had foiled two attempts to smuggle elephant ivory tusks and pangolin scales, worth up to nearly 1 million U.S. dollars.
On Sunday, the department successfully seized an illegal smuggling of 23 ivory tusks weighing 75.74 kg, with an estimated value of 275,542 ringgit (64,266 U.S. dollars) at a warehouse of the Kuala Lumpur International Airport, the Malaysian custom department's assistant director general Mohd. Pudzi Bin Man said in a statement.
On the same day, the authorities also busted an illegal smuggling of pangolin scales weighing some 300 kg, amounting about 3.86 million ringgit (0.9 million U.S. dollars) at an airport warehouse.
The ivory was declared as "food stuff," while the pangolin scales was declared as "fish maw".
