A Thai man hired prostitutes to smuggle poached rhino horns disguised as legal hunting trophies from South Africa to supply the Asian black market, media said on Friday.
Chumlong Lemtongthai, 43, who was arrested last week outside Johannesburg, was part of a syndicate alleged to have sold at least 40 rhino horns, the weekly Mail & Guardian and the daily Beeld reported.
The revelation came from a South African manager for Thai Airways, John Oliviers, who worked with Chumlong but then turned whistle-blower and informed the police, the papers said.
Olivier told police that Marnus Steyl, a South African wildlife trader, bought rhinos from auctions and private owners and took them to his farms, where the animals were killed soon after their arrival, the paper said.
“Once the rhinos were established on Steyl’s farm, he would call Lemtongthai and tell him how many animals were in place for a ‘hunt,’” read Olivier’s statement, according to the Mail & Guardian.
South Africa allows a limited number of legal rhino hunts, but each person is allowed only one kill per year.
Friends, strippers and prostitutes were paid 5,000 rand (US$740) to pose as hunters and export the horns, the papers said.
Each horn was taken to a taxidermist, who mounted it on a shield to look like a hunting trophy.
Chumlong paid 65,000 rand per kilo for the horns and sold them for 380,000 rand per kilo, the papers said.
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