Forest rangers seize sua wood from three old trees at Phong Nha – Ke Bang National Park 

Fisherman Nguyen Van Lam and his wife, from Na Hamlet in Son Trach Commune, found the wood while fishing on the Son River on February 28.

Lam said, “While I was fishing my nets became very heavy. I decided to dive down and see what was stuck and found several sua tree trunks. I yelled out because I was so excited, attracting the attention of people around who scrambled to take the wood."

Lam and several other local people found a total of 12 trunks of sua, scientific name dalbergia tonkinensis prain, each worth about VND2 billion. Each trunk was two metres long and as much as 20 centimetres thick. 

After hearing about the incident, the head of the park and the local forest rangers came to inspect, but by that time the entire crowd had dispersed along with the valuable wood.

On the same day, leaders from Bo Trach District together with provincial forest rangers and local police began a joint investigation in order to track down the source of the wood.