In Almaty, four men tried to sell over 10 hundred saiga horns, packed into eight bags, but were detained by police.
"The main phase of the special operation was carried out by operatives and special forces in the Almaty region. There, a Hyundai vehicle was blocked, and during a search, eight bags containing 1,212 horns were seized. The suspects have been placed in the temporary detention facility of the Police Department. A pre-trial investigation has been launched into the illegal handling of rare and endangered species, as well as prohibited species of plants or animals, their parts or derivatives," reports polisia.kz, citing the Deputy Head of the Almaty Police Department, Kuatbek Nauatov.
Meanwhile, it became known that police officers in the Kaztalovka district of the West Kazakhstan Region found and seized 226 saiga horns from a local resident. A criminal case has been opened on this matter, and an investigation is underway.
Earlier, it was reported that in the first four months of this year, 15,200 metres of banned fishing nets, 9 tonnes of fish and fish products, around 3,500 saiga horns, 135 hunting weapons, and 81 cubic metres of illegally harvested timber were seized from illegal circulation.
In March alone, the Border Service Department of the National Security Committee of the Zhetysu region detained three citizens of Kazakhstan in the border zone attempting to smuggle 1,382 saiga horns. The damage to the state was then estimated at over 3.5 billion tenge. Incidentally, according to our data, one horn on the black market costs around $2,000.
Previously, President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev announced that he would revoke the Ministry of Ecology's decision to cull saigas and ban the so-called 'removal' of the saiga population, calling them symbols of the Kazakh steppe.
Later, on the website "Open NPA", the Committee of Forestry and Wildlife proposed amendments to the rules for providing the state service "Issuance of permits for the removal of animal species whose numbers are subject to regulation". This concerned a ban on the culling of saigas.