Kenya nabs Vietnamese for alleged rhino horn smuggling

NAIROBI: A Vietnamese citizen has been arrested in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi for smuggling rhino horns out of Mozambique, APA learnt Monday. According to media reports, the arrest however took place, not in Maputo, but in Nairobi as the Vietnamese, named as 47 year old Vuanh Tuan, awas on transit at the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport from Maputo and bound for Hanoi.

The head of the criminal investigation police at the airport, when he arrived at Nairobi on board a scheduled Kenya Airways flight from Maputo.

He said the police decided to search his luggage and found seven pieces of rhino horn, rhino tails and lion teeth weighing a total of 12 kilograms.

According to the Kenyan media reports, the value of these illicit wildlife goods amounted to $123,000.

The horns loaded onto the Kenya Airways flight in Maputo almost certainly came from some of the rhinos slaughtered across the border, in South Africa’s Kruger National Park.

Mozambique where many of the poachers hail from, certainly tops the list of poaching activities on the African continent.

Source: customstoday.com.pk

Rhino horn smuggling ringleader jailed for 70 months

Hidden camera photo of Li purchasing rhino horns from an undercover USFWS agent © New Jersey U.S. Attorney's Office

Wildlife trafficker Zhifei Li has been sentenced to 70 months in prison for his role in trafficking 30 rhinoceros horns and numerous other rhino horn and elephant ivory artifacts from the US to China. The sentence is one of the longest ever handed out in the US for wildlife crime.

Zhifei Li, who owns an antique business called Overseas Treasure Finding in Shandong, China, admitted he was the “boss” of three antique dealers in the US whom he paid to obtain wildlife items and smuggle them to him via Hong Kong.

His arrest in January 2013 happened when he was caught purchasing two endangered black rhinoceros horns from an undercover US Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) agent during “Operation Crash”. This was a US nationwide effort led by the USFWS and the Justice Department to investigate and prosecute those involved in the illegal wildlife trade.

“Li was the ringleader of a criminal enterprise that spanned the globe and profited from an illegal trade that is pushing endangered animals toward extinction,” said Sam Hirsch, Acting Assistant Attorney General for the Environment and Natural Resources Division. “As this case clearly demonstrates, rhino trafficking is increasingly organised, well financed, and a threat to the rule of law. The United States is resolved to bring wildlife traffickers to justice.”

All species of rhinoceros are protected under United States legislation and commercial trade in rhinoceros horn is also not permitted under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES). 

USFWS Director Dan Ashe said: “The sentence handed down today serves notice to other organised trafficking and poaching rings that their crimes will not go unpunished. We will relentlessly work across the US government and with the international law enforcement community to destroy these networks, while strengthening protections for rhinos in the wild and reducing demand for horn in consumer countries.”

Source:  wildlifeextra.com

Three Chinese arrested for smuggling rhino horns

An endangered black rhino in Namibia

April 2014: Three Chinese nationals, found with 14 rhino horns and leopard skins hidden in their luggage, have been arrested as they tried to board a flight to Hong Kong from Namibia.

The horns had been wrapped in foil and plastic before being hidden in clothes. They were about to board a flight to Johannesburg with a connection onto Hong Kong as their final destination.

The three Chinese, Li Xiao Liang (30), Li Zhi Bing (53) and Pu Xu Nin (49), have been charged with possession of and export in controlled wildlife products.

“This is a very serious case and it is receiving the full attention of the Ministry of Environment and Tourism because these foreign nationals were found in illegal possession of products of animals which are protected in Namibia,” said Deputy commissioner Edwin Kanguatjivi from the Namibian police.

Pu Xu Nin told the magistrate at the first hearing that he had no connection with the other two accused and had no wildlife products in his possession. The magistrate, Jermaine Muchali , told him that he would have to stay in custody while police continued with their investigations and until the future court case.

"This is shocking news and we are trying to establish the origin the rhino horn. There have been very few poaching cases reported in Namibia in the areas where we support the desert adapted black rhino so we are keen to find out more about the source," said David Shepherd Wildlife Foundation CEO, Sally Case.

Source: wildlifeextra.com

Man jailed for smuggling iguana meat into U.S.A.

A Las Vegas man who tried to sneak 115 oven-ready iguanas into the United States from Mexico has been sentenced to two years in prison for illegally importing the reptiles, authorities said on Thursday. A federal judge ordered Eliodoro Soria Fonseca, 38, to serve 24 months in prison, the U.S. Attorney’s office for the Southern District of California said.

Fonseca was arrested as he tried to cross into California through the Otay Mesa port of entry, south of San Diego, last June with the iguana meat packed in coolers. A search found the beheaded, skinned, and deboned bodies of 115 green iguanas weighing 159 pounds (72 kg) hidden beneath fish in the coolers.

“According to admissions in his guilty plea, the defendant imported the iguana meat for the purpose of serving it as food to humans,” the attorney’s office said in a press release.Green iguanas are eaten in Mexico and Central America. They are enjoyed in stews or roasted and served in tacos or flautas, usually with condiments. Some recipes recommend parboiling the reptiles first.

But iguanas are also regulated by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES). While they are not endangered, CITES say they may become threatened if trade is not tightly controlled. Fonseca, who said he obtained the iguanas in Nayarit in western Mexico, had neither an import license from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service nor any CITES permit from Mexico’s wildlife management authority.

According to sentencing documents, a researcher working for an iguana conservation program in Mexico concluded that removing more than 100 iguanas from the Nayarit area essentially “means that the local population was technically wiped out.”

Source:  (By Wango Wango) http://horn.so

Two in Thailand held for smuggling carcasses from Malaysia

BANGKOK: Thai police have arrested two men in connection with the smuggling of tiger and leopard carcasses from Malaysia. They picked up the men – a Thai and a Vietnamese – in Kannayao yesterday and seized the carcasses of two tigers and two leopards. Central Investigation Bureau deputy chief Maj-Gen Sriwara Rangpramnakun said initial investigations revealed that the carcasses were destined for China, enroute Thailand, Laos and Vietnam. He said the carcasses were smuggled into Thailand from Malaysia through Sadao in Songkhla.

Photo: FREELAND Foundation / AP

According to the police, the men claimed that the dead tigers could fetch up to 700,000 baht (RM70,000) each. Perhilitan, the Wildlife Protection and National Parks Department, said it had come across quite a number of cases of Malaysian-registered luxury cars being modified to hide illicit cargo of endangered animals. Another tactic was to hide illegal wildlife by mixing them with products such as fish and vegetables while some traffickers try to pass off the animals as airline cargo.

Under the Wildlife Conservation Act, which went into effect recently, those caught smuggling endangered wildlife could face a fine of up to RM500,000 and mandatory jail time. 

Source: Bernama

Cobras in Papaya

GEORGE TOWN - A shipment declared as papayas was found to contain hundreds of cobras and freshwater turtles worth some RM110,000 (S$45,000) meant for the cooking pot in Hong Kong.

The animals were rescued by the Department of Wildlife and National Parks (Perhilitan) in a joint raid with the Malaysian Quarantine and Inspection Services at the KL Airport Services local cargo complex in Batu Maung near here.

Penang Perhilitan director Jamalun Nasir Ibrahim said the 555 cobras and 171 turtles were found inside 80 polystyrene boxes which were kept among 100 boxes of papayas in a container.

The shipment, he said, was declared as papayas bound for Hong Kong. He said the driver of the lorry transporting the container was arrested during the raid around 4.30am on Wednesday.

"We arrested the driver, who is in his 40s, to facilitate investigations to track down the mastermind," Jamalun said yesterday.

 

He believed a syndicate was behind the smuggling of the giant Asian pond turtles (Heosemys grandis) and the monocellate cobra (Naja kaouthia).

"We believe the animals were to be smuggled out to meet the demand for exotic animal dishes," he added.

Jamalun said the cobras could fetch RM200 each for the bigger ones and about RM800 each for smaller ones while the turtles cost about RM200 each.

Both species, he said, were listed under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora, which meant that trading in them was only permitted with an export permit and certificate of origin.

Based on the shipment's documentation, he said, the papayas were harvested from a farm in Kedah.

Jamalun said the case was being investigated under Section 10 of the International Trade in Endangered Species Act that carries a fine of not more than RM100,000 for each animal but not more than RM1mil in aggregate, or a maximum seven-year jail term or both.

Source: thestar.com

Luxury car-go for smuggling

KUALA LUMPUR: A casual observer would be none the wiser seeing a tricked-out luxury car speeding down the highway. That is exactly what traffickers hope for as they transport their illicit cargo of endangered wildlife. Perhilitan, the Wildlife Protection and National Parks Department, said it had come across quite a number of cases of Malaysian-registered luxury cars being modified to hide the animals. “Transporting the animals using lorries is the more obvious choice while luxury cars don't usually arouse suspicion,” a Perhilitan spokesman said.

Traffickers are also getting smarter, switching modes of transport where it is least expected. The spokesman said the department had encountered cases where the luxury cars were driven from Johor to Kuantan in Pahang for the precious cargo to be transferred to a ship to be taken out of the country. Another tactic is to hide illegal wildlife by mixing them with products such as fish and vegetables while some traffickers try to pass off the animals as airline cargo, the spokesman said.

He said enforcement activities to stop animal smuggling are being hampered by information leaks, with “tontos” people working for syndicates monitoring the movement of Perhilitan officers. “We also have to deal with false tip-offs, getting information that is inaccurate and outdated,” said the spokesman, adding that the department urgently needed more enforcement officers. “We have forwarded the request for more staff to the Natural Resources and Environment Ministry.

“In the meantime, we have to ensure our staff are trained to deal with international wildlife crime, with the help of the police, Customs Department, the Anti-Smuggling Unit and the Malaysian Maritime Enforcement Agency,” he said. To break the multi-million ringgit cycle of illegal wildlife trade, the Government is hitting smugglers where it hurts. The Wildlife Conservation Act 2010 spelled the end of token fines and slaps on the wrist for convicted wildlife traffickers.

Offenders now face fines of up to RM500,000 and mandatory jail time. The highest penalty imposed on a wildlife offender by the courts to date is a RM200,000 fine and one-day jail on an individual in Penang for possessing 135 pangolins in Feb 23 last year. From the time the Act took effect, the country saw a drastic drop in wildlife smuggling cases from about 3,500 cases a year from 2007 to 2010 to just 464 in 2011. 

While the sharp dip is proof that the heavy penalties under the new Act, coupled with intensified multi-agency operations, are working, the Perhilitan spokesman said the department has to be on its toes to keep up with the increasingly sophisticated methods used by the traffickers.

Source: thestar.com.my