It began with a raid on a quiet property in Pahang, and ended with three Vietnamese nationals receiving the heaviest wildlife crime sentences in Malaysia’s history.

 

The sun had just dipped below the horizon over Kampung Sungai Charu when the convoy moved in. It was 15 November 2023, just after 7 pm. The road off Jalan Sungai Lembing, cutting into the dark Pahang countryside, was silent.

Ten officers from PERHILITAN, Malaysia’s Department of Wildlife and National Parks, moved in with six commandos from the Royal Malaysia Police’s elite 69 Komando unit. They had a warrant. They had intelligence. What they did not yet know was the scale of what lay inside.

The property, tucked away in Panching about 37 kilometres from Kuantan, sat on enough land for fruit trees and even a small Chinese temple. It was not a place you stumbled upon.

Inside were three Vietnamese nationals.

Bui Thi Ngan, 56, said she had been hired to clean the house and tend livestock. Her younger brother, Bui Van Noi, 48, told officers he simply drove her there in a car registered in his name. And then there was Bui Van Anh, 38, Ngan’s stepbrother, a local wireman.

Three relatives. One house. And behind its doors, the remains of some of Malaysia’s most endangered species.

Over the hours that followed, officers catalogued 45 individual items across 13 seizure forms. The house and the vehicles parked outside, a silver Proton Persona and a blue Toyota Land Cruiser Prado, yielded a staggering cache of wildlife parts.

There were 493 Sun Bear parts, including 397 claws and 85 fangs. Officers also counted 276 Leopard parts, claws, fangs, molars, and meat, and 56 Tiger parts, including claws, a whisker, and a fang, items traded across East Asia for use in traditional medicine.

The seizure extended further: 20 Clouded Leopard parts, eight from Asian Golden Cats, 10 Pangolin scales, and a portion of meat, three Asian Elephant teeth, and the head of a Sumatran Serow.

Wild Pig parts numbered 67. There were 59 Porcupine quills, three Bearded Pig parts, three Wolf parts, two Barking Deer heads, and one Reticulated Python part.

Fourteen species. Nearly 1,000 parts. Some were frozen in chest freezers. Others had been processed, solidified, and packaged.

Officers also seized wire snares, axes, a spear, agarwood processing tools, passports, mobile phones, a weighing device, and, notably, a translation device.

This was not the work of opportunistic poachers.

The Unwitting Owner

Six days after the raid, officers arrested Lim Heng Hui, 36, the registered owner of the property. Detained in Kuantan, he briefly appeared central to the case.

Lim told the court he had inherited the land in 2018 and visited only occasionally to pray at the temple or harvest fruit. In 2021, he allowed Ngan and Van Anh, whom he had known for years, to stay there rent-free. A month before the raid, Ngan said a third person would join them.

Prosecutors later accepted that Lim did not know what was stored inside the house. The charge was withdrawn, and he testified as a prosecution witness.

The property became the base of a major wildlife trafficking operation.

The Long Trial

The three accused first appeared before the Kuantan Sessions Court on 22 November 2023. All pleaded not guilty. Bail was denied. Prosecutors cited the seriousness of the charges, which carry penalties of up to 15 years’ imprisonment, and the flight risk posed by three foreign nationals with no local ties. They remained in custody throughout.

The trial spanned more than 20 court dates over two years and was closely monitored by Justice for Wildlife Malaysia under Project Minerva. It brought moments of tension.

When proceedings began, each entered a not guilty plea.

The defence challenged the procedure and evidence. Officers were questioned over the absence of photographs from the arrest scene. One enforcement officer faced scrutiny over a discrepancy in his witness statement regarding hidden wildlife parts allegedly shown by the accused. The presiding judge questioned how such a direction could have taken place without an interpreter, given that Van Noi, who spoke neither Bahasa Malaysia nor Mandarin, was among the accused.

Then there was Bui Van Anh. Mid-testimony, after answering in Vietnamese through an interpreter, he suddenly switched to Bahasa Malaysia. The courtroom took notice.

On 26 August 2025, Judge Maimoonah binti Aid ruled that a prima facie case had been established on all 15 charges. The accused chose to testify in their own defence. By the time proceedings closed in October 2025, ten prosecution witnesses and three defence witnesses had testified.

In mitigation, defence counsel urged leniency. The accused were modest earners with no prior records, he said, and had cooperated during remand. The prosecution countered with the scale of the seizure, the seriousness of the offences, and the public interest at stake.

The Verdict

The sentence was historic.

Across 15 charges, Judge Maimoonah imposed a combined fine of RM128.9 million and prison terms ranging from 15 months to 12 years, to run concurrently from the date of arrest on 15 November 2023. If the fines remain unpaid, the three face more than eight additional years in prison.

The charges were brought under Malaysia’s Wildlife Conservation Act 2010. Offences involving totally protected species, including the Tiger, Sun Bear, and Pangolin, were prosecuted under Section 68(1)(b), which carries a minimum fine of RM150,000 per part and up to 15 years’ imprisonment. Lesser charges were brought under Section 60(1)(b), with the snare offence under Section 29(1).

Throughout the trial, Ngan, Van Noi, and Van Anh maintained they did not know the wildlife parts found in the house they occupied, the car they used, or the property they tended.

The court was not persuaded.

What It Means

Malaysia sits at the crossroads of one of the world’s most active wildlife trafficking routes. Its forests shelter species found nowhere else, including the Malayan Tiger, the Sun Bear, and the Clouded Leopard. All were among the parts seized from the house in Panching.

From the outset, PERHILITAN’s former legal advisor, Fatin Hanum binti Abdul Had, flagged the case to the Attorney General’s Chambers as a matter of significant public interest. She described it as evidence of a well-organised, cross-border syndicate. The translation device. Multiple vehicles. Industrial-scale storage. A family-run structure.

The signs pointed beyond three individuals in a kampung house.

Whether Ngan was simply a cleaner, Van Noi merely a driver, and Van Anh just a wireman living under the same roof was the central question at trial.

The court found its answer.

The house in Panching is empty now. The forest is still full of life, and the animals that remain are the reason this conviction matters.

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Case reference: PP v Bui Thi Ngan, Bui Van Noi & Bui Van Anh  |  CA-63ES-3-11/2023  |  Kuantan Sessions Court (3)  |  Source: Sinar Harian; Justice for Wildlife Malaysia, Project Minerva; PERHILITAN case documents

 

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