DOJ Brings Charges Over African Ivory Trafficking

The Department of Justice indicted a group of alleged elephant ivory and rhinoceros horn traffickers, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York said in a June 13 news release. The indictment names four individuals, two of whom were arrested in Uganda or Senegal, while two Kenyans "remain fugitives." Manhattan U.S. Attorney Geoffrey Berman said "the alleged enterprise, responsible for the illegal slaughter of dozens of rhinos and more than 100 elephants, was as destructive to protected species as it was lucrative." DOJ said the horns and ivory involved were valued at more than $7 million.

According to the indictment, "the defendants, and others known and unknown, would and did knowingly import, export, transport, sell, receive, acquire and purchase wildlife with a market value in excess of $350, to wit, [Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES)] protected rhinoceros horns and elephant ivory, in interstate and foreign commerce." The alleged transactions are said to have violated wildlife protection laws in Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania, and Mozambique, in addition to U.S. law. The charges stem from plans made with a "confidential source" to ship the goods to Manhattan.

DOJ said since at least 2012 through May 2019, the defendants illegally sent the horns and ivory around the world. The scheme led to the transport and distribution of "at least approximately 190 kilograms of rhinoceros horns and at least approximately 10 tons of elephant ivory from or involving various countries in East Africa, including Uganda, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Guinea, Kenya, Mozambique, Senegal and Tanzania, to buyers located in the United States and countries in Southeast Asia," DOJ said. "Such weights of rhinoceros horn and elephant ivory are estimated to have involved the illegal poaching of more than approximately 35 rhinoceros and more than approximately 100 elephants. In total, the estimated average retail value of the rhinoceros horn involved in the conspiracy was at least approximately $3.4 million, and the estimated average retail value of the elephant ivory involved in the conspiracy was at least approximately $4 million."