Seventeen Chinese nationals in a wildlife poaching outfit have been caught with 240 protected turtles, most of them dead, in the second such seizure this week, police said today.

Only 20 of the 240 Hawksbill and Green turtles were found alive after marine police arrested the poachers, from southern Hainan province, off the coast of Sabah.

Sabah marine police chief Mohamad Sueb Abdullah said marine police boarded the boat after sighting it in waters off the coast on Wednesday morning.

"We checked and we found out that there were 220 dead turtles and about 20 still alive, and three sharks," Mohamad Sueb told AFP.

"Seventeen of them were arrested on board, one skipper and another 16 workers. The boat is from China, they are of Chinese nationality," he said.

Photos published in news reports Thursday showed the dead turtles lined up in long stretches of five rows, as marine police made an inventory of the carcasses.

The World Conservation lists the Hawksbill turtle as critically endangered, while the Green turtle is also endangered.

Mohamad Sueb said the fisheries department would be prosecuting the Chinese for encroaching in Malaysia's waters and poaching.

"The fisheries department is taking action, they are going to prosecute this case," he said.

Penalties for the offences are a RM1 million fine for the skipper and a RM100,000 fine for each of the crew, or up to five years in jail for failure to pay, according to police.

Earlier raid

The arrests follow a similar incident Monday off Sabah's waters, where marine police detained 19 Chinese nationals from Hainan with 78 turtles, most of them dead as well.

Mohamad Sueb said police believed the men were all in the same group of poachers, citing similarities in the two boats and their equipment.

"We believe they are of the same group ... according to them they are from the same place, Hainan," he said.

Turtles are hunted in Malaysia for their meat and valuable shell, but many also die after getting entangled in fishing nets in open seas.

China is a major importer of turtles from Asia for food and medicinal purposes and aggressive illegal poaching in Southeast Asian countries has seen sea turtle numbers falling.