While searching the truck, police found 149 pangolins, 105 turtles and 172 kilograms of pangolin scales stored in Styrofoam containers.

Police said that the animals are alive but in poor health.

They are conducting further investigations.

In Vietnam, pangolins are commonly consumed as specialty dishes at restaurants, soaked and served in wine or used in traditional medicine.

Education for Nature-Vietnam, one of Vietnam's few locally based conservation groups, said that the country is a transit point for pangolin trafficking networks from other neighboring countries like Laos and Cambodia to China.

Since the start of 2005, the group has detected more than 69 tons of frozen pangolins and live pangolins being transported illegally to the northern province of Hai Phong, from where they are shipped to China.

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