Hanoi - Authorities in Vietnam have arrested three people, including two park officials, for chopping down a rare kind of tree from a park in Hanoi and selling the highly prized timber, police said Tuesday. Cao Anh Son, 35, Nguyen Xuan Huy, 37, and Bien Huy Than, 39, were arrested Monday after they cut down a rare tree called dalbergia tonkinensis from a city park.
The single tree, which was 50 centimetres in diameter and 4 meters tall, would be worth some 65,000 dollars on the black market, according to local newspaper Dan Tri.
The tree, known as "sua" in the Vietnamese language, produces a multi-hued timber that makes it prized for furniture and coffins. It reportedly was once used for emperors' thrones in China.
But the tree is also listed as endangered, according to Doan Xuan Hung with the Police Department of Dong Da district in the city.
There are 94 trees of the same kind in the park and hundreds of others along Hanoi streets.
"Recently, five trees of this kind have been illegally cut down in Hanoi and we are afraid more will be cut down," Hung said.
Son and Huy, who both work for the city park service, are accused of taking 48 million dong (3,000 dollars) from Than to allow the latter to cut down the tree and then sell it to a man named Tuan, according to police.
"We are searching for Tuan as the investigation is underway," Hung said. "He might have taken the tree to China to sell."
Dalbergia tonkinensis wood is said to be a rare medicine and aromatic substance and its wood is sold for between 500,000 and 1 million dong (31-62 dollars) per kilogram.
