Wu says she is yet to be contacted by police on seal organ illicit export allegations

Staff Reporter

Chinese businesswoman and property mogul, Qiaoxa Stina Wu, has said that she is not aware of any criminal investigation being carried out against herself or business partner Charlie Xie, after a seal genital cargo of 20 kilos was flagged in Hong Kong, China, after being exported from Namibia without the relevant export documents for listed species under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES).

It is further reported that the cargo was undervalued to evade tax and
that the true nature of the cargo was concealed.

Wu, who threatened to sue journalists for alleging that she is being investigated for the illicit export of Namibian wildlife, sat down with The Informanté in an interview together with Charlie Xie, who is the owner of Virgo Biotechnologies Pty Ltd, a company focused on research, development, and value-added processing of Namibia’s high-quality natural resources, such as seal oil, seal sex organs, mangetti nuts (a nut from the Kavango East region), !Nara fruit, and Kalahari melon seed oil, which are significantly undervalued.

Virgo Biotechnologies entered into an agreement with Uukumwe Youth Empowerment Consortium (Pty) Ltd, a local company, which was allocated a total of 15,166 MT of seals for the 2024 harvesting season by the Ministry of Fisheries and Marine Resources.

“There is nothing illegal about the seal genital parts; it is from Uukumwe. They gave the 20 kilos to say this is for testing. We bought stock for N$ 900,000, and most of this stock, which is around 120,000 kilos, is still in Namibia, stored in a warehouse, while 20 kilos of the stock, which was not for commercial purposes but for testing, was exported to Hong Kong. This cargo was flagged by authorities when it arrived in China around 25 December 2024 for lacking documentation from the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES),” businessman Xie explained.

He further denied the involvement of Wu in facilitating the export of the seal products via her company, the At Helmsman Group, and indicated that this was done via Virgo Biotechnologies.

“We used Transworld Cargo to export the consignment. Usually, they tell us we need an export health certificate from the Ministry of Health and an export permit from the Ministry of Trade; however, they did not inform us about the requirement for CITES,” Xie said, adding that this was the first consignment his company had exported, as the business had only been started in late 2024.

Xie further denied hiding the true nature of the consignment, adding that the information filled in for certificates from the Health Ministry, as well as the export permit from the Ministry of Trade, both revealed the cargo as genitals of seals. There was no attempt to hide the true nature of the cargo to avoid inspection by customs officials or circumvent the CITES documentation.

Wu and Xie further added that they are yet to be approached by NamRA or the Namibian police regarding an alleged criminal investigation.

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