20 Feb 2008
- Key members of a smuggling ring trading
tiger skins and bear parts into China will
face trial in March after a 6 month operation
in which WWF and TRAFFIC provided technical
assistance to customs, police and navy officials
in the Russian far east.
About 900 paws of brown
and black bears, 4 tiger skins, more than
60 kilos of tiger bones and 531 saiga horns,
valued at more than $US 200,000 were seized
in three joint seizures by customs, police
and navy services.
“This shows the immense
damage being done to endangered species
and nature by organized wildlife poaching
and smuggling,” said Sergey Aramilev, biodiversity
conservation officer at WWF-Russia’s Amur
branch.
“This operation is also
important in setting a precedent to fight
the illegal trade from wildlife products.
We cannot resuscitate killed animals, but
we managed to stop a big contraband channel
and enforce control on the Sino-Russian
border.”
The smuggling ring initially
became known to authorities early last year,
after officials became suspicious of a load
of supposed potatoes being transported into
China. Inspection revealed eight bags of
bear paws, three tiger skins, several horns
and fragments of different animals’ carcasses.
Although the driver
provided no information, police were able
to identify first the details of the logistics
on the Russian side of the smuggling operation.
The key actor was then identified as a Chinese
citizen with the Russian given name of Kolya.
Kolya was active in
the Ussuriisk market, a key meeting venue
for smugglers and poachers in one of Primorsky
Province’s principal cities. He also travelled
to outlying districts finding operators
to fulfil orders and dealing directly with
poachers himself.
In March last year authorities
were able to intercepted sledges with a
cargo including 120 bear paws on frozen
Khanka Lake, but members of the gang travelling
with the sledges managed to escape on snowmobiles.
Telephone intercepts
showed the two seizures had put the ring
into difficulties with recipients in China,
with a nervous Kolya being required to assemble
a larger than usual shipment.
Authorities set up an
operation, allowing Kolya’s Russian partner
to believe he had successfully “hired” road
police to ignore the shipment and made similar
arrangements for the border tracking system
covering Khanka Lake to be switched off
for a night in August 2007.
To make the crossing
seem even easier, local military personnel
were deliberately sent on a “training” exercise.
Riot squad police brought
in from elsewhere then swooped on the smugglers
while the load was being prepared for transhipment
across the lake.
Other members of the
gang not at the scene were arrested later.
All face trial on charges of smuggling and
illegal border crossing and face potential
prison terms of 7 to 12 years.
During 2007, WWF regularly
informed authorities of instances of illegal
wildlife products destined for China from
the Russian far east. WWF and TRAFFIC experts
assist in the investigations of criminal
cases and are available to advise on detained
goods.
The August 2007 Khanka
Lake seizures are among the most significant
in recent years
+ More
Trade is virtual but
the wildlife isn’t
29 Feb 2008 - Chinese
conservationists met major internet auction
site companies in January, urging action
on illegal virtual trade in thousands of
products made from threatened wildlife.
4300 advertisements
for wildlife products, including elephants,
tigers, rhinoceroses and marine turtles,
have been found for sale on Chinese-language
internet sites.
The meetings with authorities
in China, Hong Kong and Taiwan follows an
eight months survey of popular Chinese language
auction sites by the wildlife trade monitoring
network TRAFFIC.
The survey included
Yahoo, eBay and several independent websites.
“Internet service providers
and websites need to take greater responsibility
for keeping wildlife trade legal”, said
Joyce Wu, Programme Officer for TRAFFIC
East Asia.
“Government authorities
must also ensure that wildlife trade on
the internet conforms to the same regulations
as wildlife in physical markets.”
During the course of
the survey, TRAFFIC informed authorities
in China, Hong Kong and Taiwan about suspected
illegal trade.
As a result, several
advertisements were removed, deliveries
intercepted and those involved convicted.
Once the report World
Without Borders was published, TRAFFIC met
the China Convention on International Trade
in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and
Flora (CITES) Management Authority and the
China Internet Information Security Monitoring
Bureau to address different standards in
physical and virtual trade.
The latest meetings
were held with major website companies,
eBay, Taobao, Tencent, and other relevant
organizations such as the State Forestry
Administration and the Customs Bureau to
find solutions to control illegal wildlife
trade on the internet.
TRAFFIC‘s aim is to
promote efforts to keep online trade legal
and sustainable, because the extent of wildlife
being offered for sale in apparent contravention
of international and national laws is alarming.
The reports recommends
the development of strategies to police
virtual markets, to bring web-based markets
under the same regulatory structure as physical
markets and alert shoppers to the growing
use of internet for illegal trade.
(TRAFFIC is a joint programme of WWF and
the World Conservation Union (IUCN)
Joyce Wu
