A file photo of pangolin scales hidden inside frozen fish seized by border inspection team in south China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region on November 22, 2015. [Photo: news.china.com]

A court in south China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region has sentenced a man to five years in prison for driving 26 smuggled pangolins from Vietnam into China, local authorities said Sunday.

The man, an inhabitant of Dongxing City surnamed Tang, was also fined 50,000 yuan (7,745 U.S. dollars) by the Intermediate People's Court of Fangchenggang City.

The court said Tang was paid by smugglers to carry the pangolins in a commercial van across the China-Vietnam border to China on April 7.

He was seized in Dongxing driving his vehicle on an expressway leading to neighboring Guangdong Province. The 26 pangolins included 20 from Malaysia and six from China, according to the local police.

Pangolins, which are under second-class state protection in China, are often smuggled because their meat is considered a delicacy and their scales are believed to have medicinal qualities.

Those who illegally catch, kill, buy or sell endangered wild animals on the state's protection list can face more than 10 years in prison plus fines.