More than 400 bird skins being smuggled to Malta were found in a joint operation by officials from the Wild Birds Regulation Unit, Customs and the Police.
A 37-year-old man from Mġarr is helping the Police in their investigations.
The government said in a statement that on Wednesday, a passenger who had just arrived on a Lufthansa flight from Frankfurt was seen to be behaving suspiciously by a customs official. An inspection of his luggage revealed that the man, who had just returned from a hunting trip in Argentina, was carrying 411 bird skins, the importation of which is restricted.
The consignment was made up of grebes, swans, ducks, eagles, hawks, falcons, storks, flamingos, ibises, crakes, gulls, owls and passerines, and others, the majority of which are protected in their country of origin.
Moreover, some 120 of the specimens are protected by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES).
An official of the Wild Birds Regulation Unit said that this consignment comprised one of the most significant cases of wildlife smuggling attempts involving dead protected birds in the last decade.
The last time an attempt on a similar scale was disclosed was in 2005, when two persons were detained at the MIA while trying to smuggle more than 500 dead birds following their arrival from a hunting trip in Egypt.
PROTECTED BIRDS SEIZED
In an unrelated development, officers from the Administrative Law Enforcement Unit and the Specialist Enforcement Branch of the Wild Birds Regulation Unit over the past weeks conducted several inspections in private residences that led to some 70 protected birds being seized.
These included a stuffed booted eagle and a short-toed eagle, suspected to have been shot in October last year. A carcass of a common cuckoo, suspected to have been shot in April this year was also seized. Six people are being charged in court in relation to these cases.
TWO MEN GUILTY OF HAVING PROTECTED SPECIES IN THEIR POSSESSION
In another incident, two Gozo residents were found guilty by the court of being in possession of a number of protected bird species.
A man from Kerċem was fined €1,000 and had his hunting licence suspended for a year after he admitted to having in his possessing a flamingo carcass, suspected to have been shot in September last year. A man from Xagħra was fined €2,300 and had his licence suspended for a year after admitting to being in possession of 78 mounted and eight carcasses of protected birds.
Investigations were carried out by the Gozo Police and officials from the Wild Birds Regulation Unit.
The courts ordered the confiscation of the birds, which are being handed over to the National Museum of Natural History.