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Two Taiwanese busted in duck tongue smuggling

Two Taiwanese men have been arrested for allegedly smuggling raw duck tongues from China in the first such case amid lingering concerns over bird flu, an official said yesterday.

Investigators in central Taiwan nabbed the two men early Wednesday and confiscated nearly four tonnes of tongues from about a million ducks, said the official at the Bureau of Investigation.

The tongues, with a retail value of about NT10 million (US$317,000), were suspected to have been shipped from China, the official said.

They were destroyed immediately as China is considered vulnerable to bird flu, he said.

Cooked duck tongues are a delicacy among many locals and Hong Kong tourists.

Taiwan has slaughtered about 479,000 birds since H5N2, a less virulent strain of the bird flu which has hit the Asian region, was first detected at a chicken farm in the central county of Changhua in January last year.

It later banned imports of tigers, lions, wolves and other wild animals from most Southeast Asian countries as the fatal bird flu outbreak claimed more lives in the region.

Health experts have warned the H5N1 strain of the virus could lead to a pandemic if it mutated into a form which could be easily transmitted between humans.
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