Authorities arrested six people in South Africa on August 19 in connection with an international rhinoceros horn trafficking network. They made the arrests after a seven-year investigation by the Hawks, the South African Police Service branch that specializes in fighting organized crime.
The suspects are accused of smuggling 964 horns worth $14.1 million to illegal markets in Southeast Asia. They face charges of fraud, theft and violating a national biodiversity law. Authorities made the arrests days after a Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime report highlighted East and Southern Africa as a pivotal node for organized crime — including the smuggling and trafficking of wildlife products, humans, drugs, minerals and weapons, as well as extortion. These regional criminal markets, which fuel local crime, are connected to global networks.
“The Hawks’ work shows that our enforcement agencies will not hesitate to pursue those who plunder our wildlife for criminal profit,” Dion George, South Africa’s minister of forestry, fisheries and the environment, said in a statement.
According to the crime report, rhino horn is commonly smuggled by air from Johannesburg, South Africa, and Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. It is routed through Dubai and Doha and sometimes Paris and London to elude law enforcement.
In June, officials arrested 11 people in Mozambique’s Nampula province and charged them with possessing and trafficking nearly 61 kilograms of amphetamine and heroin. Heroin is often trafficked into East and Southern Africa from Afghanistan, through Pakistan and Iran, and is shipped across the Arabian Sea and Indian Ocean en route to northern Mozambique and Tanzania. It then splits into two supply lines: one of higher quality bound for Australia and Europe, and another that is adulterated and consumed locally, according to the crime report.
In January, authorities arrested three Chinese nationals with 12 gold bars and $800,000 in cash in the restive eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, near the Rwandan border. Militia groups control many of the illicit gold mines in eastern DRC and earn revenue by selling it to middlemen. The previous month, the DRC sued Apple and accused them of using “blood minerals” in its products, the BBC reported. DRC government lawyers alleged that minerals taken from conflict areas are “laundered through international supply chains.”
“These activities have fueled a cycle of violence and conflict by financing militias and terrorist groups and have contributed to forced child labor and environmental devastation,” the lawsuit said.
In northern Mozambique and South Africa’s KwaZulu-Natal province, investigators have implicated Islamic State group terrorists in gold smuggling, extortion schemes and kidnapping. People smuggling and trafficking also is acute in the Horn of Africa, often involving vulnerable populations in Eritrea, Ethiopia, Lesotho, Mozambique, Somalia and Zimbabwe, according to the crime study.
In July, authorities released more than 100 migrants and refugees held captive by a human trafficking and smuggling gang in Libya after arresting their captors. The victims had been tortured and their relatives forced to pay ransom. Officials arrested five suspected human traffickers from Egypt, Libya and Sudan.
The challenges in stemming organized criminal economies in East and Southern Africa are complicated by limited law enforcement, surveillance and security capacity in many areas. Bole International Airport in Ethiopia is a bustling smuggling hub for minerals, wildlife products, people and drugs. According to the crime study, the airport handles more than 24 million passengers, 50 million pieces of luggage and 226,000 tons of cargo annually. However, it lacks sufficient screening equipment, staff and sniffer dogs.
Similarly, the port of Durban, South Africa, is “notorious for its inefficiency, corruption and drug trafficking,” the crime report said. The port handles about 60% of the country’s container traffic, only a fraction of which can feasibly be scanned or searched.
The crime study offered authorities several recommendations to help disrupt the continent’s trafficking hubs, including:
* Leveraging private sector and international funding to establish an observatory or analysis center to track and analyze relevant trends in illicit trafficking and smuggling, extortion and arms dealing.
* Prioritizing the identification of prominent organized crime figures and their facilitators through coordinated investigations and intelligence sharing nationally, regionally and internationally.
* Expanding the capacity for targeted container screening at South African ports in Beira, Durban and Mombasa.
* Increasing diplomatic pressure on permissive jurisdictions and free-trade zones that are used to funnel illicit financial flows.
* Focusing on emerging hubs, such as Madagascar, a strategic point in transnational trafficking that is a rich source of gold and graphite, wildlife products and people smuggled overseas.