Poached rhinoceros horns worth US$1.1 million stolen from police facility after being seized
Activists condemn authorities after thieves escape with 12 horns worth US$1.1 million
A police spokesman told the investigative journalism group Oxpecker that the horns had disappeared from the police headquarters in the capital of Maputo early on Friday morning and had not been recovered.
Four security staff were arrested on suspicion of aiding the theft. A further two suspects were arrested for producing bull horn replicas to switch with the stolen horns. The suspects were due in court in Maputo on Wednesday.
Two weeks ago the largest seizure of ivory and rhino horn in Mozambique's history was made from the house of a Chinese national in Maputo. The 1.3 tonnes were poached from 65 rhinoceros and 170 elephants.
Rhino are extinct in Mozambique. The horns likely came from South Africa, where a rhino poaching crisis centred on Kruger national park has spiralled out of control in recent years.
Governments in Africa have become increasingly hostile to the international crime gangs that trade in ivory and rhino horn. But in Mozambique, gangs have found a gateway to black markets in China and Vietnam.
Peter Knight, the executive director of Wild Aid, said: "Mozambique has fenceless borders with the largest supply of rhino horn - Kruger national park in South Africa. Powerful gangs similar to Colombian drug cartels can walk across the border, poach, and then escape home with horn to safety as police are either bribed or intimidated."
Sabri Zain, director of policy at wildlife trade monitoring group Traffic, said the government's credibility had been damaged by the security breach.
"The reported disappearance of rhino horns from a police warehouse just days after they were seized is a serious cause for concern and puts Mozambique's law enforcement actions firmly back into the limelight," he said.
WWF's Mozambique director, Anabela Rodrigues, said: "The Mozambican authorities must do everything in their power to recover the stolen horns before they are smuggled overseas, and to arrest and prosecute those involved - both the wildlife criminals and corrupt officials."
Mozambique's president, Filipe Nyusi, used an address to a police anniversary celebration this week to lament police involvement with trafficking.
"When policemen are caught in the gangs trafficking in rhinoceros horns, elephant tusks, and various drugs, or facilitate these same crimes, I am unable to sleep," he said.
The founder of wildlife charity Born Free, Will Travers, called on Nyusi to personally intervene to stop police corruption.
He asked: "What is the point of carrying out enforcement in the field, tracking and intercepting wildlife crime and putting the lives of rangers and other officers at risk if confiscated high-value wildlife products can be so vulnerable to corruption?"
In a separate incident this month, Kenyan airport authorities arrested a Vietnamese man carrying US$82,000 worth of rhino horn between Mozambique and Hanoi while he was on a stopover in the Kenyan capital Nairobi. On Tuesday, the Wildlife Conservation Society announced the country had lost half its elephant population to poaching in five years.
The Mozambique government was not available for comment. The Chinese embassy did not return calls asking for comment on the alleged involvement in Chinese nationals in the theft.
