Smuggled elephants tusks saga: Similar case continues to rumble in Tanga court


March 25, 2009

THISDAY REPORTER
Dar es Salaam

A THREE-YEAR OLD case is currently pending in a local court with striking similarities to the evolving saga of over 40bn/- worth of elephant tusks that were recently smuggled out of Tanzania into Vietnam, it has been established.

A total of 6,232 kilogrammes of jumbo tusks valued at $29.41m (just above 40bn/-), were earlier this month found hidden in hundreds of boxes labeled plastic waste, inside a container which had been transported by ship from Tanzania to the Vietnamese port of Hai Phong via Malaysia.

Reports say there were more than 200 pairs of tusks in the haul, which is now in the hands of Vietnamese customs authorities with plans in motion to auction the lot.

It has now been established in Dar es Salaam that six suspected poachers of Tanzanian nationality are presently standing trial at the Tanga Resident Magistrate’s Court in a case involving the smuggling of two containers also filled with fresh elephant tusks from the Tanga Port to Taiwan way back in June, 2006.

These suspects face a possible jail sentence of 30 years imprisonment if found guilty of the charges facing them, the Director of Wildlife in the Ministry of Tourism and Natural Resources, Erasmus Tarimo, confirmed in an interview with THISDAY

While details of the Tanga case have remained scanty for unclear reasons, it is understood that at the start of the case, a total of 13 Tanzanians were in the dock. However, this original number of accused has since been whittled down to just six as the court proceedings continue.

The charges involved are related to wanton elephant killing and poaching activities, plus the illegal smuggling of containers filled with valuable ivory trophies out of the country.

According to reports at the time, Taiwanese customs officers at the Kaohsiung Habour in Taipei seized more than two metric tonnes of illegal elephant ivory, valued at more than $3.1m on two separate shipments into the harbour during June 2006.

The shipments were apparently sailing out of Tanzania and headed for Manila in the Philippines.

The containers were filled with at least 350 African elephant tusks, representing an estimated 175 dead jumbos, and hidden in wooden boxes marked as ’sisal fiber.’

The reports further noted that sisal is produced in Tanzania (mainly Tanga Region), and is used to make ropes and rugs.

According to Taiwanese authorities interviewed at the time, fresh bloodstains and bits of flesh found on the ivory indicated that the tusks were probably from elephants that had been recently killed.

Most of the tusks, they said, had been cut from full-grown elephants.

Speaking to THISDAY in the city, Tarimo said the government has decided this time to once again make optimum use of organs like the international police network (Interpol), Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES), and anti-poaching Lusaka Agreement Task Force (LATF) office in Nairobi, Kenya to crack the latest Vietnam case.

He disclosed that it was through the same institutions that enough headway was made in the 2006 Taiwan case to eventually lead to the arrest and prosecution of bona fide smuggling suspects in Tanga.

According to the wildlife director, the Tanzania chapter of Interpol has already contacted their colleagues in Vietnam in the wake of the latest reports.

He said although the Vietnamese Interpol has yet to respond, some information has started trickling in from CITES, whose representatives in Vietnam are understood to have verified that the latest batch of smuggled government trophies did indeed originate from the port of Dar es Salaam.

Further details will become available in coming days, he said, while also making it clear that any local officials found to have been involved in this latest smuggling case would bear the full brunt of the nation’s laws

’’We will not spare anyone, whether they are from the wildlife department right here in the ministry, the Tanzania Revenue Authority (TRA), or such places,’’ he asserted.

However, it remains unclear what will happen to the foreign collaborators.