Chinese ivory smuggler gets record sentence in Kenya poaching crackdown

A court in Kenya on Tuesday slapped a record sentence on a Chinese ivory smuggler, the first person to be convicted under tough new laws designed to stem a surge in poaching.

Tang Yong Jian, 40, was ordered to pay 20 million shillings (HK$1.78 million) or else go to jail for seven years. He was arrested last week carrying an ivory tusk weighing 3.4 kilograms in a suitcase while in transit from Mozambique to China via Nairobi.

A spokesman for the Kenya Wildlife Service, which manages the country’s celebrated national parks, welcomed the verdict.

“It’s a landmark ruling that sets a precedent for those involved in smuggling,” Paul Udoto said, saying stricter sentences will make the “killing of wildlife a high cost business”.

“It’s a remarkable precedent,” he said, explaining that the fact that smugglers were previously punished with “a slap on the wrist” was demoralising for park rangers.

“It’s very motivating for our rangers” to see poachers “lose a lot of money and spend long terms in Kenyan prisons,” he said.