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Spanish police seize 74 elephant tusks in Madrid house

MADRID – Spanish police say they seized 74 illegally hunted African elephant tusks worth an estimated 200,000 euros ($222,000) and arrested a man who was trying to legalize possession of them so they could be sold.

A Civil Guard statement Thursday said the discovery came after officials of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species in Spain warned of a possible fraudulent application for papers demonstrating ownership of the tusks of 37 elephants as part of an alleged inheritance.

Investigations showed the detainee, a Spaniard, had been granted a permit in 1970 by Mozambican authorities to hunt one elephant, not 37 as was sought on the application.

The tusks, weighing about 750 kilograms (1,650 pounds), were found last month in a house in the town of Colmenar de Oreja, outside Madrid.

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