Tanzania police charge Chinese woman with smuggling ivory

Source: AP | October 9, 2015, Friday |

Online Edition

A Chinese woman has been charged in a Tanzanian court with smuggling nearly 1.9 tons of ivory as wildlife activists applauded the move by Tanzanian authorities to crack down on the illegal ivory trade, which has devastated the elephant population in just a few years.

Businesswoman Yang Feng Clan, 66, was charged Wednesday in Dar es Salaam alongside two Tanzanian men. The three suspects allegedly committed the crime between Jan. 1, 2000 and May 22, 2014. Their case was adjourned to Monday.

According to the Tanzanian government, the elephant population has plummeted from an estimated 109,051 in 2009 to 43,330 in 2014.

"Tanzania has been the ground zero of elephant poaching in East Africa for the past several years. ... A slaughter of industrial proportion such as this cannot have happened without the involvement of high-profile, corrupt individuals and government officials at the two ports of Dar es Salaam and Zanzibar, and elsewhere in civil society," conservation group the Elephant Action League said in a statement Thursday

The group said that a specialized wildlife trafficking unit under Tanzania's National and Transnational Serious Crimes Investigation Unit made the arrests. "It's the news that we all have been waiting for, for years", said Andrea Crosta, co-founder of the Elephant Action League and WildLeaks.

In February, China imposed a one-year ban on ivory imports that took immediate effect amid criticism that its citizens' huge appetite for ivory has fueled poaching that threatens the existence of African elephants.

World

About Us
|
Terms of Use
|
RSS
|
Privacy Policy
|
Contact Us
|
Shanghai Call Center: 962288
|
Tip-off hotline: 52920043

沪ICP证：沪ICP备05050403号-1
|
互联网新闻信息服务许可证：31120180004
|
网络视听许可证：0909346
|
广播电视节目制作许可证：沪字第354号
|
增值电信业务经营许可证：沪B2-20120012

Tanzania police charge Chinese woman with smuggling ivory

Email this to your friend