Crime Syndicates Smuggling Wildlife

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Crime Syndicates Smuggling Wildlife

 

 

 

June 07, 2007 — By Arthur Max, Associated Press

 

THE HAGUE, Netherlands -- It could be ivory concealed in a container, cans of

caviar in a suitcase or baby chimpanzees in a crate. The smuggling of wildlife

goods is a low-risk, high-profit enterprise proving increasingly attractive to

crime syndicates.

 

Exports of wildlife, including fisheries and timber, are estimated at $150

billion to $200 billion a year. The illicit side of the business is likely worth

tens of billions of dollars, experts say.

 

" It's big, and it's getting bigger, " says Peter Younger of Interpol, the

international police coordinating agency.

 

Stacked against drug running or international terrorism, wildlife crime claims

minimum priority with national police forces. If caught, smugglers often face

little more than a fine or short jail term. In countries with weak judiciaries,

suspects can stall their cases indefinitely while resuming their illicit

business, he said.

 

" It's a business loss, and then you can go on with what you were doing, " said

Steven Broad, director of TRAFFIC, which monitors the international wildlife

trade.

 

The United States also has a thriving black market in live animals, carved

ivory, reptile skins, medicinal plants and illegally logged lumber, said Claudia

McMurray, the assistant secretary of state for environmental affairs. Anecdotal

evidence indicates it largely is supplied by organized crime.

 

" You have wildlife and drugs together, " she told The Associated Press, citing

one case in which a live snake was stuffed with small sacks of cocaine -- in the

hope customs officers would not want to inspect the legally imported snake too

closely.

 

" It's something we are pursuing quite aggressively, " she said. " If you catch

them on one activity, you're probably going to cut off some other activities and

then you can put them in jail. "

 

Poachers capture baby chimpanzees and gorillas and crate them north through

Egypt and on to Europe, Younger said. Russian crime gangs smuggle beluga caviar

in suitcases, fetching $4,450 per kilogram in the retail market.

 

In raw ivory alone, Interpol made 13 major interdictions in the last two years

worth $26 million, said Younger.

 

Last year, Hong Kong customs officials discovered elephant tusks concealed

behind walls of three shipping containers that had made a tortuous route from

Africa through several Asian ports. Younger declined to give details of the

ongoing investigation, but showed a diagram of an interlocking web of shell

companies, suspects and interim destinations in a half-dozen countries.

 

Corruption is another problem, he said, recalling the case of a large shipment

of ivory that " went missing " after it was seized by customs officers in the

Philippines.

 

The problems of enforcement have shadowed this month's Convention on

International Trade in Endangered Species meeting to review rules on

cross-border trade in plants and animals threatened with depletion and sometimes

on the verge of extinction.

 

Since the last conference of the 171-nation CITES in 2004, Europe and Asia have

set up regional enforcement groups and some countries have tightened

coordination among customs services, environmental bodies and police.

 

Interpol set up a one-man wildlife department last March, and its database

tracks wildlife crime alongside drugs and counterfeiting.

 

But huge gaps remain. Southern African countries have come to grips with

elephant poaching, but the illegal ivory trade is soaring in Central and West

Africa.

 

Ivory and timber are the currency that funds coups and rebellions across an

unstable belt of the continent.

 

Benson Okita, Kenya's Rhino Program Coordinator, underscored the high stakes

involved in the business of rhinoceros horns.

 

" Last month three Kenyan rangers were shot dead by poachers and one was

critically wounded " in a gun battle that also left four Somali poachers dead,

Okita said.

 

Between 2003 and 2005, 60 percent of the rhino populations were killed by

commercial poachers in the two African countries, according to a TRAFFIC report.

 

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CITES: http://www.cites.org

 

Source: Associated Press

 

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“The Earth is not dying - she is being killed. And those who are killing her

have names and addresses.†— Utah Phillips