Irish rhino horn racket uncovered by Europol

Europol says it has uncovered an Irish organised crime group illegally trading rhino horn worth tens of thousands of euros as far afield as China.

The EU's police agency said it had gathered intelligence and evidence against the group, which was "known to use intimidation and violence".

The agency said it was working with Irish police and had drawn up an action plan to tackle the illegal trade.

More than 200 of the endangered animals were killed in South Africa last year.

There is a high demand for rhino horn, which is a prized ingredient in traditional Chinese medicine and is also used for decoration and to produce luxury goods.

Depending on the size and quality, a horn can be worth between 25,000 (£22,000; $36,000) and 200,000 euros, according to Europol.
'Significant players'

"Significant players within this area of crime have been identified as an Irish and ethnically Irish organised criminal group," the agency said on Thursday.

To obtain the horns, the group targeted antique dealers, auction houses, art galleries, museums, private collections and zoos, "resorting to theft and aggravated burglary where necessary".

International auction houses had been "exploited" in the UK, France, USA and China, Europol said.

The same group was also involved in other serious crime across the EU such as drug-trafficking, organised robbery, distribution of counterfeit products and money-laundering.

Its activities had also been monitored in North and Latin America, South Africa, China and Australia.

Europol and Irish police recommended launching dedicated investigations in each country involved and alerting potential targets "of possible visits to defraud or attack them for their specimens".

How an organised crime gang in Ireland is 'masterminding illegal trade in rhino horns'


An organised crime gang from Ireland is masterminding illegal trade in rhino horns around the world.

The group, believed to be from the Traveller community, are actively targeting auction rooms, galleries, museums, zoos and private collections in Europe to steal the rare specimens.

And with contacts in North and South America, South Africa, China and Australia, the gang is then going on to exploit the lucrative legal trade by selling them on for up to 200,000 euros a time.
Trading in rhino horns can get the gangs that run the trade as much as 200,000 Euros each

Illegal trade: Rhino horns can net the crime gangs that run the trade as much as 200,000 euros each

Key players in the group are also involved in drug smuggling, distributing fake power tools, tarmac fraud and money laundering.

Europol and Ireland's Garda issued the warning about the gang which it said was a significant player in the theft and smuggling of rhino horns on top of other more opportunistic crimes as they travel across Europe.

The police said the tarmac and power tool fraud was allowing the gang to camouflage their trade in rhino horns.

Depending on size and quality, one horn can be worth anything from 25,000 euro (£22,400) to 200,000 euro (£179,000).

Europol also warned that some of the gang members were becoming highly sophisticated in money laundering, international shipping and travel, communications and forged documents.

They said some of the gang were willing to resort to theft, aggravated burglary, intimidation and violence if necessary.

Gardai and the international police force have called for dedicated investigations in countries where the gang has links to determine the scale of the organised crime threat.

Police forces have also been urged to swap intelligence on the gang and warn people who own rhino horns or put them on display that they may be a target.

Rhinos are often poached for their horns, made of keratin and sold on the black market for ornamental or medicinal purposes, particularly in Asia and for Chinese herbal medicine.

The two African species and the Sumatran rhinoceros have two horns, while the Indian and Javan rhinoceros have a single horn.

There have been a few 'Irish' guys posting on taxidermy.net looking for rhino horns to buy.

In Irelands location would those be woolly rhinos?



SSR

quote:

Traveller community

Pikeys?

An Irishman involved in Rhino horn trade?....knowing Paddy they probably be the horns off Nellie

quote:

Originally posted by Hunters Quest:

quote:

Traveller community

Pikeys?

Yup. The do as you likeys are the scum of the earth. Absolute vermin.

I don't usually feel that way about entire races but in the case of Pikeys, it's absolutely true..... a more horrible bunch of bastards, you could never meet in a hundred lifetimes!

Other than that, they're not so bad!

Here is the Wikipedia definition of "Pikey". Here in the States we just call them Gypsies.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pikey



Pikey remained, as of 1989, common prison slang for Romani people or those who have a (perceived) similar lifestyle of itinerant unemployment and travel.

More recently, pikey was applied to Irish Travellers (also known as tinkers and knackers) and non-Roma Gypsies. In the late 20th century, it came to be used to describe "a lower-class person, regarded as coarse or disreputable."

Pikey's most common contemporary use is not as a term for the Gypsy ethnic group, but as a catch-all phrase to refer to people, of any ethnic group, who travel around with no fixed abode.

Among English Romani Gypsies the term pikey refers to a Traveller that is not Romani. It may also refer to a member who has been cast out of the family. If a member of the family is hot headed or a thief or a trouble maker or brings misfortune on the family, then a family council will be held and that member will be cast out of the family and will have to stay out of the way for ever more. They are regarded as never having even been a part of the family.

In the late 20th and early 21st centuries, the definition became even looser and is sometimes used to refer to a wide section of the (generally urban) underclass of the country (in England generally known as chavs), or merely a person of any social class who "lives on the cheap" such as a bohemian.

Negative English attitudes towards "pikeys" were a running theme in the 2000 Guy Ritchie film Snatch. In 2003 the Firle Bonfire Society burned an effigy of a family of gypsies inside a caravan after travelers damaged local land. The number plate on the caravan read P1KEY. A storm of protests and accusations of racism rapidly followed. Twelve members of the society were arrested but the Crown Prosecution Service decided that there was insufficient evidence to proceed on a charge of 'incitement to racial hatred'.

The Oxford History of English notes that:

"young people who use charver or pikey to identify a contemporary style of dress or general demeanour suggest an aimless "street" lifestyle, unaware of the Romany origin of the first or of connotation with "gypsy" of the second. Pikey, formed from turnpike roads, as along with pikee and piker been used in the South East [of England] especially since the mid-Nineteenth-Century to refer to itinerant people of all kinds and been used by travelling people to refer to those of low caste. Scally a corresponding label originating in the North West of England was taken up by the media and several websites, only to be superseded by chav. A very recent survey has unearthed 127 synonyms, with ned favoured in Scotland, charver in North East England and pikey across the South [of England].

http://forums.accuratereloadin...1411043/m/2251008631


Link to thread from last summer when AR members were being contacted from someone who claimed to be from Ireland looking for rhino horn.

UK cops warned on rhino horn thefts

As the price of rhino horn soars to twice that of gold, police have warned museums to take precautions after a spate of thefts.

In the last six months, some 20 thefts of horn have been recorded from museums and auction houses across the UK and Europe, according to the Metropolitan Police Art and Antiques Unit.

Organised criminal gangs are often using "smash and grab" raids and have shown they are willing to use force, the unit said in a statement.

It said the increase has been triggered by a significant rise in the value of rhino horn, used in traditional Asian medicine, which can now reach up to £60 000 per kilo, twice the value of gold.

Several significant seizures have been made recently by customs officers worldwide, and there has been a great increase in rhinoceros poaching in South Africa, it added.


"We advise all museums, auction houses, stately homes or private individuals who are in possession of rhino horns to be extra vigilant and review their security arrangements," the unit said.

"Consideration should be given to removing rhino horns from public display and storing them in secure locations, informing the public that the items have been removed."