Vietnamese authorities announced on Monday that they had seized seven tons of ivory from elephants in Angola, the largest such shipment intercepted in recent years.
This ivory was found by customs in the port of Haiphong (North) in a container that, according to the official slip, was supposed to be transporting peanuts.
Photos released by Customs showed hundreds of long ivory tusks stacked in front of an open container.
The cargo was shipped to Vietnam via Singapore, authorities said.
Tusks, like other body parts of elephants, are prized as talismans and used in traditional medicine in parts of Asia, although there is no scientific evidence of such medicinal use.
Vietnam officially banned the ivory trade in 1992, but the country remains a hub for the illegal transportation of wildlife in Asia.
More than 60 tons of ivory, pangolin scales and rhino horns have been seized at Vietnamese seaports since 2018, according to a 2021 report by Education for Nature Vietnam, a wildlife conservation NGO.