Officials at Adisutjipto International Airport in Yogyakarta foiled an attempt to smuggle 7,040 dried seahorses out of the country on Wednesday.

“The dried seahorses were packed in two large boxes. It was destined for Bangkok, Thailand,” said airport general manager Agus Pandu Purnama as quoted by kompas.com.

The smuggling attempt was foiled after a security officer X-rayed the two boxes.

The 26 kilograms of dried seahorses belonged to a passenger identified only as LB.

"Based on coordination between the airport authority and a quarantine officer, they found that the passenger did not have a permit to export the commodity,” Agus said, adding that the man had violated Law No. 16/1992 on animal, fish and plant quarantine.

“The passenger did not have official documents from the fish quarantine office,” Agus said, adding that the airport authority had increased the monitoring of goods and people at the airport. (bbn)