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MAPUTO. — Police in Mozambique said yesterday they had seized 1,3 tonnes of elephant ivory and rhino horn — the result of killing about 200 animals — in the country’s biggest ever find of illegal wildlife products.
An Asian man was arrested on the outskirts of the capital Maputo at a house where the stash was stored.
Rhino are extinct in Mozambique, but hunters from the country are often armed by transnational crime syndicates to kill rhinos and elephants across the border in South Africa.
The police raid on Tuesday discovered 340 elephant tusks, weighing 1 160kg, and 65 rhino horns, weighing 124kg.
“The man lived alone in the house for three months and hid his illegal activity by pretending to be involved in tin can recycling,” Emidio Mabunda, spokesperson for the Maputo provincial police, said.
“Some of the tusks still have fresh blood, a sign that some of animals could have been killed recently.”
Mabunda clarified earlier reports that the man was Chinese, saying he was Asian but his nationality was not confirmed.
South Africa has been hit with a sharp rise in rhino poaching in recent years, with numbers at record levels this year despite renewed government efforts and the use of helicopters and anti-poaching dogs.
The 65 rhino horns seized were most likely hacked from animals slaughtered in the Kruger National Park.
Rhino horn is prized in Asia for its supposed medicinal properties in traditional cures for cancer, impotence and hangovers, while elephant ivory is highly valued in China and Thailand in artworks or jewellery.
The cache was reported to have a street value of about $6.3m.
Police hope that the suspect will lead them to the trafficking gang behind poaching.
They added that the illegal goods were ready to be smuggled out the country.
“It should be destroyed to send a message to the world that . . . we are shifting to another level of intervention in the fight against poaching,” prominent environmental activist Carlos Serra said.
Meanwhile, authorities in Mozambique arrested five police officers for colluding with a poacher in the illegal sale of a rhino horn, the state news agency reported yesterday.
Rhino poaching is on the rise across southern Africa because the horn is much sought after for Asian traditional medicine. In South Africa alone, 1 200 rhino were poached last year.
Police came across the poacher carrying a horn at the Limpopo National Park, but instead of arresting him, they helped him sell it and pocketed half of the $24 500 he got for it.
With most of Mozambique’s rhino extinct, police believe he poached the animal across the border in South Africa where 90 percent of the world’s rhino reside.
The officers and the poacher were arrested a day later, after a tip-off, said the press report. Police are still searching for the person who purchased the horn.
In Namibia, the local press agency reported that a court has refused to grant bail to a Chinese national believed to be a central figure in the country’s largest rhino horn smuggling network.
Wang Hui is believed to be linked to three other Chinese nationals who were arrested after they were caught with 14 rhino horns and a leopard skin hidden in their luggage as they tried to travel to Hong Kong, the Namibian Press Agency reported.
The men will appear in court again later this month. — AFP/AP.
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