Customs officials have confiscated elephant ivory worth 15 million baht (US$469,200) believed to have been smuggled into Thailand by wildlife traders from Nigeria.
The gang hid the ivory in three parcels declared as "general goods" but officials cottoned on and decided to inspect the packages, which turned to be valuable elephant carcasses, Chaiyut Kumkun, deputy chief of the Customs Department, said yesterday.
She was referring to an operation carried out at Suvarnabhumi airport in Bangkok late last month.
Some 31 pieces of ivory weighing 148 kilogrammes were found covered by aluminium foil inside a green bag.
Nobody has claimed the parcels and officials found the provided receiver's address was fake, Ms Chaiyut said.
The parcels were imported on an Ethiopian Airlines plane that departed from Murtala Muhammed International Airport in Lagos, Nigeria in West Africa, she added.
Thailand is believed to have been intended to serve only as a transit point, said Chaloemkiat Siworakhan, the deputy national police chief.
The ivory's intended destinations were Laos and Vietnam for ultimate routing to China, where demand for exotic animals is rampant, he added.
As Thai elephant ivory is so rare, the nation draws hordes of smugglers.
The country is a major hub for the African ivory trade in Southeast Asia, according to officials working with the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora.
The regulatory body threatened to impose a wildlife trading ban on Thailand unless it curbs the illegal ivory trade.
Last September officials at Suvarnabhumi airport seized 4 million baht of ivory hidden in a box labelled as furniture equipment.