>> Vietnam a hub for trafficking of endangered animals

>> Tiger trafficker busted by police in Hanoi

>> Vietnam’s soft conservation policies hard on tigers

Authorities in southern central Phu Yen Province stopped a car carrying 128 kilograms of rare snakes inside of it.

Phu Yen market management force disrupted the illegal transport of snakes

The car, with plate number 92K-3022, driven by Do Thanh Nhan from Quang Nam Province, was stopped at 2am on November 27 on National Highway 1A. Most kinds of snakes are banned from being captured, transported and traded under Vietnamese law.

The driver said he was hired by Huynh Ngoc Lam in Quang Nam to transport the wildlife from Phan Thiet City to Quang Nam Province for a person whose name has not been released.

The market management force transferred the wild animals to the Phu Yen Forest Management Department for further investigation.

Vietnam has become a hub and transfer zone for trafficking rare, exotic and endangered animals to other countries according to comments from Deputy Minister of Public Security, Pham Quy Ngo, at a national environment conference held in Hanoi on November 17.

At a recent international conference on protecting rare animals in Eastern and Southeast Asian countries, the General Department of Forestry said it had uncovered hundreds of violations, confiscating over 8,000 animals of different types in the first ten months of this year alone. The number of rare animals in the country has sharply decreased and many of them even face the risk of extinction. Currently, up to 882 wild animal species are endangered.