It’s too late for the elephants, but Customs officials in United Arab Emirates have interrupted a smuggling racket that tried to ship hundreds of tusks from Africa to China.

The inspectors in Dubai’s Jebel Ali Airport say the containers were deceptively marked as furniture, but instead held 259 pieces of elephant Ivory.  And the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW) says it came from in Kenya.

Poaching has risen in recent years across sub-Saharan Africa, where well-armed criminal gangs have killed elephants and rhinos for tusks that are often shipped to Asia for use in ornaments and some medicines.  Political unrest in countries such as the Central African Republic have game underpaid game wardens at the mercy of poachers, who take advantage of such nations putting all their resources into battling insurgencies.  Poachers in just one raid killed dozens of elephants in Central African Republic earlier this month.

This was the second shipment of its kind to be seized by Dubai customs officials since November, when 215 elephant tusks worth an estimated $4 million en route from Kenya to Hong Kong was intercepted.  That shipment had been concealed in bags marked “red beans”.