Rhino Poaching: Arrests, Prosecutions & Sentencing

[Lisbeth]

It's written I think that they are going to pay for that too

[Richprins]

This is an EXTREMELY good precedent that has been set!

[RogerFraser]

Two men in possession of 187 rhino horns were arrested on Saturday in Skeerpoort during a joint operation led by a special task team of the South African Police Service.

Deon van Huizen Editor

https://kormorant.co.za/50150/187-rhino ... Y.facebook



A bakkie was transporting the rhino horns from Centurion in Gauteng to a smallholding in Skeerpoort in the early ours of Saturday morning. Two vehicles and a firearm were also confiscated during the operation.

It is estimated that the value of these rhino horns is more than R300 million. The average weight of a rhino horn is 8 kilograms with an estimated value of $30 000 per kilogram

This is a breaking story. Kormorant will publish updates as soon as more information is available.

[RogerFraser]

Other unconfirmed reports suggest these were de-horned farmed Rhino horns going to be sold illegally

[RogerFraser]

Save the Beasts. Stop the Slaughter
9 hrs ·
Breaking: #RHINOHORNBUST.
Simon Bloch

South Africa's serious crimes investigation unit, the HAWKS, have officially confirmed the seizure of 187 rhino horns and the arrest of 2 white males who were allegedly transporting the contraband for sale on the black market.

This latest seizure and the arrests come hard on the heels of two major busts by customs authorities at Hong Kong's International Airport, both of which involved the illegal transportation of rhino horns from South Africa.

According to a media statement titled Operational Success, law enforcement authorities received a tip-off earlier today that an undisclosed amount of rhino horns was about to be transported and sold on the black market.

The shipment, which contained horns ranging from small cuts to large fully-grown horns, were allegedly being transported, accompanied by a special armed-security escort vehicle.

The police task-force was activated in the late hours of Saturday morning, and the vehicles followed from Centurion near Pretoria, to the North West Province, where a tactical plan was executed.

187 horns were found , and 2 vehicles and 1 firearm were also seized by the.authorities.

The seizure is believed to be the biggest haul of rhino horns ever captured by the authorities in South Africa. An international ban on the trade in rhino horn has been in place since the mid-70's.

According to the HAWKS' spokesman, Brigadier Hangwani Mulaudzi, two male suspects will appear in the Brits Magistrates Court on Monday.

According to the NSPCA, "the trade of wild animals opens the door to abhorrent cruelty, whether it be intentional or negligent. Where there is money and animals involved, there is bound to be cruelty".

Despite global pressure against lifting the international trade ban, South Africa found itself squeezed between a rock and a hard place in 2015 when the world's largest private owner of rhino, John Hume, took the government to court, and forced the court to order the government to lift the domestic trade moratorium, over a mere technical glitch,

Not content with sales from the domestic market, Hume, and a large number of private rhino farmers aligned to the Private Rhino Owners Association, PROA, have since lobbied international governments, including China and Vietnam, to support their efforts to overturn the international ban at the next CITES meeting, to be held in Sri Lanka in May 2019.

Given these latest events and South Africa's poor track record of protecting rhinos against poachers and transnational crime syndicates, its low rate of successful prosecutions and convictions, plus the massive smuggling of horn stocks into the underground markets of South East Asia, the CITES international ban is expected to remain in place.

More to follow...watch this space.

[Alf]

That’s a lot of rhinos

[Flutterby]

[Richprins]

Yes, one can see they are sawn off, which is the standard dehorning for live "farmed" animals.

Interesting that mention is made of "two white males"...

[Lisbeth]

187 horns! are a lot. Most likely Mr. Hume knows something about this. Obviously, there must also have been an infiltrated

[RogerFraser]

Namibia
Rhino horn appeal backfires
News - National | 2019-04-15
https://www.namibian.com.na/77629/read/ ... dyStLGo3is


JAILED … Wildlife contraband smugglers Li Xiaoliang, Li Zhibing, Pu Xuexin and Wang Hui (left to right) in the dock in the Windhoek Regional Court during their trial in 2016. Their sentences were increased to an effective 15 years imprisonment each on Friday.

AN IRON fist should be used against people who commit crimes against endangered wildlife in Namibia, a judge commented in an appeal judgement handed down in the Windhoek High Court on Friday.

In a judgement in which an appeal by four Chinese citizens against a conviction on a charge of attempting to export controlled wildlife products from Namibia unlawfully was dismissed, judge Alfred Siboleka said in his view, people caught trying to smuggle rhino horns out of Namibia were guilty of inflicting the worst kind of economic setback a foreign or local national could commit on Namibian soil.

“If this subtle onslaught is not tackled with an iron fist, irreparable damage to our wildlife is inevitable and certain,” he stated.

The judge also remarked that rhinos were peaceful animals, and that nobody would have a reason to shoot at them except for wanting to export and trade in their horns.

He made the comments in a judgement on an appeal that Wang Hui, Pu Xuexin, Li Zhibing and Li Xiaoliang lodged in the High Court after they were convicted in the Windhoek Regional Court of having attempted to illegally export 14 rhino horns and a leopard skin from Namibia in March 2014.

Judge Siboleka, with judge Dinnah Usiku in agreement, not only dismissed the appeal against the men's conviction, but also ruled that they should have been found guilty of exporting controlled wildlife products, and also of unlawfully acquiring, possessing, using or taking out of Namibia the proceeds of unlawful activities.

The two judges further increased the prison terms that the four men will have to serve.

The four men's trial ended with all four of them being sentenced to 14 years' imprisonment, with two and a half years of that jail term suspended for five years for the two Lis and Pu, while two years and four months of Wang's sentence were also suspended.

That left the two Lis and Pu with effective jail terms of 11-and-a-half years, while Wang had a prison term of 11 years and eight months to serve.

In the appeal judgement, though, judge Siboleka replaced the sentences with one of 20 years' imprisonment, of which five years were conditionally suspended, resulting in an effective jail term of 15 years for each of the four men.

The court ordered that the sentences be backdated to 30 September 2016, which was the date the four men were sentenced in the regional court.

The two Lis and Pu were arrested at Hosea Kutako International Airport on 24 March 2014, after 14 rhino horns and a leopard skin had been discovered in two suitcases that the two Lis had booked onto a flight with which they and Pu were to leave Namibia. Wang was arrested in Windhoek in May 2015.

Judge Siboleka noted that closed-circuit camera recordings made at the Windhoek hotel where all four of the men had been booked in on the night before the two Lis and Pu were scheduled to leave the country clearly showed that the four operated as a group, and that they together handled the suitcases in which the rhino horns and leopard skin were later found. Although the two suitcases were booked onto a flight in the names of the two Lis, they were transporting the suitcases on behalf of their group, which included Pu and Wang, the judge reasoned, noting that Wang had also paid for his three compatriots' air tickets back to China.

Defence lawyer Sisa Namandje represented the four men when arguments on their appeal were heard in December last year. Prosecutor Simba Nduna represented the state.