Jakarta (ANTARA News) - The Ministry of Marine Affairs and Fisheries, through its Fish Quarantine Agency (BKIPM), has aborted attempts to smuggle out spawning lobsters and fly river turtles to Hong Kong and Shanghai, the quarantine chief official stated.

"On Saturday, we confiscated 10 boxes of 2,350 fly river turtles (Carettochelys insculpta), which would be sent to Shanghai by a Singapore airline flight from the Soekarno-Hatta Airport," Narmoko Prasmadji, the head of BKIPM, noted here on Monday.

He revealed that a day earlier, on Friday (Jan. 16), his office also foiled an attempt to smuggle three spawning lobsters and 40 small lobsters measuring less than 8 centimeters. The lobsters were to be transported to Hong Kong on a CX-798 aircraft.

Narmoko pointed out that if the turtles were successfully smuggled out, then the state would have incurred losses amounting to Rp470 million.

"If the lobsters were smuggled out, then the total losses suffered by the state are yet to be calculated. The price of the lobsters is Rp700 thousand per kilogram," he added.(*)

Editor: Heru Purwanto
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