Small Chinese town a centre for ivory smuggling, says pressure group
Network of ivory trading syndicates run by crime gangs operating in Shuidong in Guangdong province, group says in report
An environmental watchdog group says its investigation has found that a little-known town in southern China is a major hub for ivory smuggling by organised criminal gangs.
The Washington-based Environmental Investigation Agency said in a report on Tuesday it had uncovered a network of ivory trafficking syndicates operating out of Shuidong in Guangdong province, near Hong Kong.
The group says its investigators worked undercover posing as buyers to win the trust of a smuggling group and tracked one of its shipments from Mozambique.
Syndicate members told the agency theirs was just one of 10 to 20 ivory trafficking groups operating out of Shuidong, the group said.
They claimed that 80 per cent of all poached ivory smuggled from Africa to China passes through the town – a startling figure that’s impossible to corroborate.
China has taken steps to curb the demand for ivory that wildlife groups say fuels the mass slaughter of tens of thousands of elephants in Africa every year. It started shutting down ivory carving factories in March and is planning to ban all domestic retail sales by the end of the year.
Hong Kong, a major transshipment hub for illicit wildlife trading, is preparing to ban local ivory sales by 2021.
The agency said Beijing needed to follow up its policies with enforcement, although its decision to close down its domestic ivory market was “admirable”.
The agency investigators encountered the Shuidong syndicate members last year in Mozambique, which has become more popular with Chinese smugglers after neighbouring Tanzania cracked down. Shuidong emerged as an ivory trading hub thanks to its role as a centre for the sea cucumber trade, the report said. As China grew wealthier over the past few decades, Shuidong traders fanned out to Africa to feed growing demand for the delicacy. They were well placed to move into the illegal ivory trade when demand in China soared starting in the late 1990s.
The agency’s report said three Shuidong syndicate members revealed details and methods about their operation to smuggle more than two metric tonnes of ivory from Mozambique’s Pemba port to Shuidong by sea via Busan, South Korea.
They bribed customs officials and shipping agents along every step of the shipment’s journey, it said.
The agency said the syndicate has now moved on to Nigeria because “yellow ivory” from forest elephants native to West and Central Africa was becoming more profitable than “white ivory” from East Africa’s savannah elephants.