Daily Mirror, Zimbabwe

3 arrested over $164m ivory

The Daily Mirror Reporter
issue date :2005-Aug-16

THREE Chinese nationals were arrested at the Harare International Airport
last week while allegedly trying to smuggle ivory worth $4,6 million to
their home country.
Yin Feng (40), Li Yong (42) and a 16-year-old, all of Borrowdale, Harare,
were arrested as they prepared to fly out to China, reportedly with 41
pieces of ivory.
The trio, which appeared before Harare magistrate Paradzai Garufu last
Friday, was not asked to plead to a charge of contravening the Customs and
Exercise Act (attempted smuggling). The teenager was remanded on $2 million
bail but Feng and Yong were locked up on grounds they could abscond and
interfere with State witnesses.
Allegations are that on 5 August at Harare airport, the trio, en-route to
China, allegedly declared one laptop computer and a DVD player at the
Zimbabwe Revenue Authority (Zimra) checkpoint, but not the 41 pieces of
ivory products in their possession.
The products comprised of three bangles, 20 chopsticks, two rhino carvings,
two elephant carvings, 11 plain stamps and three decorated stamps. An X-ray
machine detected the items. The three were ordered back to court on 28
August.

Now that's some expensive chopsticks.

How does that all ad up to $4.6M (I assume M is million and not thousand)? Sometimes M means thousand and MM is million.
Peter.

I just love Bob's "Look East Policy".

Regards,

Terry

quote:

Originally posted by Peter:
How does that all ad up to $4.6M (I assume M is million and not thousand)? Sometimes M means thousand and MM is million.
Peter.

Tecnically it should be MM but here I think they mean millions of Zim dollars.

Just out of interest //

Currency Converter Results

Thursday, August 18, 2005
1 US Dollar = 18,001.0 Zimbabwe Dollar

BTW the above is the official rate /

The parallel or black market real life trading rate is apparantly 25,000 plus.

Dont forget to take your wheelbarrow with you on the plane and make sure the wheel is filled with air as it is going to be quite heavy work lugging your ZIM DOLLARS around with you on safari

Peter

Walk into the bank to buy US$ today and it is 45000-47000:1 Go into the bank and sell dollars and it is 9500:1

The actual vaule of the chopsticks and Hanko they were carrying was US$9000

quote:

Originally posted by Peter:
How does that all ad up to $4.6M (I assume M is million and not thousand)? Sometimes M means thousand and MM is million.
Peter.

It can also be abbreviated by m (lower case) meaning thousands and M (capitalized) meaning millions. I assume that is what they are doing in this case.

quote:

Originally posted by Kathi:
Daily Mirror, Zimbabwe

3 arrested over $164m ivory

The Daily Mirror Reporter
issue date :2005-Aug-16

THREE Chinese nationals were arrested at the Harare International Airport
last week while allegedly trying to smuggle ivory worth $4,6 million to
their home country.

...

It is possible the newspaper misread the M vs. m vs. MM, BUT, they were very explicit in specifying "4,6 million" ("," = decimal point in some locals).

Dan

You're right Dan, I missed that in the body of the article.

I know nothing sbout the cost of ivory, but just doing simple division with 41 pieces totaling $4.6 million that means each piece would be worth $112,195.12!!

quote:

Originally posted by Lhook7:
You're right Dan, I missed that in the body of the article.

I know nothing sbout the cost of ivory, but just doing simple division with 41 pieces totaling $4.6 million that means each piece would be worth $112,195.12!!

This is Zimbabwe currency not U.S. dollars.

quote:

Originally posted by Ganyana:
Walk into the bank to buy US$ today and it is 45000-47000:1 Go into the bank and sell dollars and it is 9500:1

The actual vaule of the chopsticks and Hanko they were carrying was US$9000

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Charles_Helm:
This is Zimbabwe currency not U.S. dollars.
[QUOTE]
Thanks Charles. I guess I'll scrap my plans to be an ivory smuggler.