Kenyan customs officials seized dozens of shipping containers holding hundreds of tonnes of illegally logged rosewood from Madagascar, they said on Wednesday, the largest bust of its kind and worth as much as $13 million.
Illegal logging of hardwood in the Indian Ocean island's rain forests spiral led out of control after a coup in 2009 and remains rampant, conservationists say, threatening rare species, including lemurs, that are found nowhere else.
Famed for its wildlife and eyed by foreign firms for its minerals, Madagascar's tourism has struggled since the coup.
The haul on May 26 at the port of Mombasa, a popular transit point for drugs and ivory smugglers, was being shipped to Hong Kong and was loaded in Zanzibar, a semi-autonomous archipelago off mainland Tanzania.
