Exposed: Rajapaksa’s Secret Plans To Smuggle Blood Ivory From Customs

May 23, 2014

Despite Sri Lanka’s obligations under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species, there has been a surreptitious move by the President Mahinda Rajapaksa to misappropriate an entire stock of blood ivory seized by the Sri Lanka Customs and now plans are being made to smuggle out the blood ivory from the Customs custody, Colombo Telegraph learnt.

Blood ivory seized by the Customs

Last year Colombo Telegraph exclusively revealed with the documentary evidence that the President Mahinda Rajapaksa’s attempt to misappropriate the entire stock of blood ivory.

Now it is more than a year since a massive quantity of illegal ivory valued over millions of dollars was seized by Customs in the port of Colombo whilst being transhipped to Dubai. They were believed to be from over 300 wild elephants poached in Kenyan game reserves.

The Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) require them to be destroyed in public to discourage this barbaric act. However being a signatory to the convention, it is learnt that the government of Sri Lanka continue to defy its obligations under the CITES                            Read More