Syndicates control illegal wildlife trade, products
RHINO horns. Ivory tusks. Pangolin scales. Drugs. Human body parts. The customs official at the international airport in Maputo in Mozambique was paid not to turn a blind eye to the gruesome containers filled with illicit “products”.
“This guy, if we took him out – and you can take that in any way you want – it would have much more of an impact in terms of the syndicates’ ability to move these products,” remarked David Barske, the head of research at the Focus Africa Foundation, a non-profit intelligence outfit probing rhino poaching in South Africa, while showing an incriminating video of the customs agent.
He and his colleague, Nigel Morgan, were speaking on the sidelines of CoP17 this week about the role of intelligence in countering organised gangs fuelling poaching, smuggling and the illegal trading of rhino horn and other wildlife.
This week, the 183 signatories to Cites decided on the future of the world’s wildlife being decimated by a $23 billion (R318.1bn) transnational organised crime industry. But Morgan said intelligence was the key to undermining criminal networks and organised syndicates at the heart of wildlife crime.
“Organised crime takes advantage of corruption, from the lowest level policeman all the way up to high-level politicians and diplomats.”
Their foundation had conducted an 18-month investigation “from the ground up”, explained Barske, tackling the “middlemen” involved in rhino poaching. “We did the probe into quite high-level Chinese exporters of all sorts of wildlife products, who used casinos to transfer wealth. These guys are not amateurs. They were arrested in May 2014. We tried to work with the local police. The first operation was a failure, the second time they were arrested, immediately got bail of R10 000 and left the country.”
Morgan agreed. “These people are highly intelligent, well-organised and utterly ruthless. For every poacher you kill, there’s another 100 or couple of hundred who are doing the same job… Our job is in the middle to disrupt level three and four on the organised crime pyramid – the people who are the buyers, who control the pipeline to the Far East.
“You’ve got so many corrupt officials, whether it’s the police, or the officials at our airports. In Mozambique, you pay $10 000 and that airport scanner is turned off. Corrupt officials are lubricating the system for criminal syndicates.”
He added that there was little political will to tackle organised crime and senior government leaders and diplomats were complicit in organised crime.