The Border Service Department of the National Security Committee of the Zhetysu region detained three citizens of Kazakhstan in the border zone. They are accused of attempting to smuggle steppe antelope horns.
According to the press service of the department, during searches 1,382 saiga horns were seized from them. The damage to the state is estimated at more than 3.5 billion tenge. A pre-trial investigation is being conducted under Article 339 of the Criminal Code of the Republic of Kazakhstan.
Previously, the Ministry of Ecology reported that saiga horns seized from offenders would be destroyed. At the same time, the department stated that horns obtained as a result of saiga population regulation are marked and transferred for storage to RSE «Okhotzooprom».
Reasonable questions arise: is this detention not evidence of a leak from storage facilities? Otherwise, where do poachers get so many saiga horns? After all, 1,382 horns is a huge number.
To obtain them, it would be necessary to kill almost 700 saiga, which would be difficult to conceal from the eyes of supervisory authorities. And the season of so-called «legal,» or amateur hunting, which Minister of Ecology Yerlan Nysanbayev is considering allowing, is scheduled for autumn.