More than 400 bird skins originating from Argentina were found in three suitcases discovered at the airport on Wednesday evening.
The suitcases belonged to a 37-year-old man from Mġarr, who is being questioned in relation to the attempted smuggling of the skins.
There was no effort to hide the 411 bird skins in the suitcases, which were packed to capacity.
They were from at least 120 species protected under CITES, the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora. About 100 skins belonged to birds of prey.
The consignment was comprised of grebes, swans, ducks, eagles, hawks, falcons, storks, flamingos, ibises, crakes, gulls, owls and passerines.
This is organised crime involving a network of agents between Malta and Argentina
The brazen attempt to get them through Customs openly has caused the authorities to suspect this was an organised operation involving a network of agents between Malta and Argentina.
Law enforcement authorities told Times of Malta the illegal skins could not belong to one person.
They believed they were the accumulated collection of a number of hunters who would have travelled to Argentina and deposited the ‘trophies’ in the country. An individual would then bring all of them to Malta.
It is suspected the operation would start when hunting trips are organised. People in Argentina would then take Maltese hunters to the sites where their targets can be found.
The Argentina contacts would also help store the species until it is time to send them to Malta through an assigned ‘courier’.
In June last year, three Maltese nationals were detained at Linate Airport, in Milan, after a hunting trip in Argentina. The Milan police said there were about 180 dead protected birds intended to be smuggled into Malta.
Bird skins are imported instead of stuffed birds so larger quantities can be fitted into a suitcase.
Once the muscles and intestines are removed, the skin is salted for preservation and the bird is stuffed on arrival.
Birdlife Malta said such finds were just an indication of the scale of this illegal business.
“Cases like this continue to highlight the need to tackle the illegal hunting problem, which goes to show the lengths of organised crime, and this not just locally because we continually hear of Maltese being involved in illegal hunting in other countries,” Nicholas Barbara, Birdlife’s conservation manager, said.
On the same day as the find at the airport, Magistrate Aaron Bugeja upheld a request by the hunting federation, FKNK, for the police to take criminal action against six Birdlife activists in connection with the illegal possession of dead protected birds illegally shot by others.
Birdlife’s handling of injured and dead protected birds given to the organisation by the public occurred with the full knowledge of authorities, Mr Barbara said.
“Unfortunately, FKNK invests its time in attacking organisations exposing the problem rather than pressuring the authorities to clamp down on illegal hunting,” he said.