Ivory and rhino horn is being smuggled through Angola by traffickers disguised as tourists
As first appeared on Radio Eccelesia, in Angola, here. Produced by Pedro Tchindele.
March 13 2022
Two foreign nationals were recently arrested at the international airport, in possession of illegal wildlife body parts
It is illegal to trade in rhino horn, under the UN’s Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora
Image by Ajeet Panesar.
The Quatro de Fevereiro International Airport, Angola’s capital city Luanda, has recently been the gateway for many disguised tourists, with the clear intention of illicit trafficking of ivory and rhino horn. In the last three months alone, the Criminal Investigation Service (SIC), coordinating with other forces in the airport's security system, detained two Vietnamese citizens in possession of 26 kilograms of ivory worked into jewellery; 4 kilograms of raw ivory; rhino horns, weighing 6.6 kilograms; and five rolls of elephant tail yarn, weighing eight grams. Speaking to Radio Benguela’s Pedro Tchindele, SIC spokesperson, Manuel Alaiua, revealed that the accused had been recruited to transport the said product, as he had been in the country for only 5 days, and intended to return to where he had come from same route of entry – Vietnam / Dubai / Luanda – with the product in his possession. The other perpetrator, also of Vietnamese nationality, was in Angola with the same purpose.
Listen to Pedro’s full report, in Portuguese, here.
This article is reproduced here as part of the African Conservation Journalism Programme, funded in Angola, Botswana, Mozambique, and Zimbabwe by USAID’s VukaNow: Activity. Implemented by the international conservation organisation Space for Giants, it aims to expand the reach of conservation and environmental journalism in Africa, and bring more African voices into the international conservation debate. Written articles from the Mozambican and Angolan cohorts are translated from Portuguese. Broadcast stories remain in the original language.
