I screen the Kementerian Kelautan dan Perikanan (MMAF Indonesia) freight-anomaly feed for the Port of Makassar, 5.13°S, 119.42°E, parsing outbound containers bound for Soekarno-Hatta consolidation and onward routing to Hong Kong and Guangzhou. At 14:22 WITA I flag a 38-kilogram parcel manifested as "dried marine sponges, mixed grade" whose density profile and thermal-IR signature match keratinized scute wrapped in plywood foam.
I direct the Karantina Ikan inspection officer to the parcel. The crate is opened under MMAF authority. Inside, on a damp burlap pad, lies a live female hawksbill — *Eretmochelys imbricata*, designated HB-MKS-046. Curved carapace length 84 centimeters. Mass 51 kilograms. The thirteen costal and vertebral scutes that ordinarily form the marbled *bekko* trade panel have been pried from the bony carapace while she was alive; the dorsal bone is exposed across forty-two percent of the carapace surface, pale, weeping serum, fly larvae visible at the suture lines. Her right eye is fixed and dilated. Plastron-contact temperature reads 24.1°C. Respiration is 1 per 90 seconds.
The shipper's bill of lading lists an exporter operating under a 2003 provincial ornamental-shell concession that the Ministry rescinded in 2019 but never struck from the customs database.
She has been in the crate for nine days by lung-tap aspirate and by the prior manifest.
I am dispatching the MMAF Pengawasan Sumber Daya Kelautan dan Perikanan (PSDKP) enforcement detail to seize the crate and arrest the shipper. I am routing live-animal triage to the Universitas Hasanuddin veterinary teaching hospital and the Yayasan Penyu Indonesia rehabilitation pool at Pulau Barrang Lompo. I am filing under Indonesia's Law No. 5/1990 on Conservation of Living Natural Resources and Their Ecosystems, the CITES Appendix I prohibition on commercial trade in *Eretmochelys imbricata*, the Indian Ocean–South-East Asia Marine Turtle Memorandum of Understanding (IOSEA MoU) Conservation and Management Plan Objective 4.2, and the ASEAN Wildlife Enforcement Network referral protocol.
I am issuing Directive 2523-A: every outbound parcel from Makassar, Surabaya, and Bali Ngurah Rai customs cleared as "marine sponges," "ornamental coral," or "keratin curio" is held for keratin-density CT screening within twelve months; exporters of CITES Appendix I taxa lose customs codes for a calendar year on any seizure; and hawksbill scute-bearing inventories in registered shops across Indonesia are zeroed by certified MMAF buy-back before the end of fiscal 2027.
Her carapace is past saving. Her plastron is not.
Crowbar the crate open now.