Manama: Saudi Arabia authorities have seized five live pet turtles shipped by mail from Hong Kong.
A post office in the western city of Madinah received a package from Hong Kong and the monitoring staff suspected there were live pets inside it, Adel Al Faqi, the general head of the Saudi post in Madinah, said. “A special team made up of representatives from the post, the customs and security was summoned and the package was opened,” he said, quoted by news site Sabq on Wednesday.
The package recipient was summoned and he said that he never ordered live turtles.
He explained that his order was for turtle shells and added that he had been misunderstood by the senders who shipped the live pets.
Al Faqi said that the turtles were handed over to the relevant authorities and that the post office would follow the procedures required in such cases.
According to Universal Postal Union, the agency that governs mail delivery between countries, all live or dead animals are non-mailable, except live bees, leeches, silkworms, and flies of the family drosophilidae.
