An undercover investigation has reveal how a individual small Chinese town has becomethe existence ’s largest hub for illegal ivory trafficking . The anon. settlement in the backwaters of southern China has silently developed into a major center for smuggling ivory from Africa , with up to 20 deplorable gang now operating in the Ithiel Town with seeming impunity .
surreptitious film by theEnvironmental Investigation Agency(EIA ) has show in stark condition how the township of Shuidong , Guangdong province , has emerged as the world ’s hub for bone trafficking . They estimate that out of all the poached pearl illegally export from Africa , rough 80 percent of it decease through Shuidong alone . This is an over-the-top finding , highlighting the township ’s global significance in the illegal trade in wildlife .
The unprecedented investigation , write in a account titled“The Shuidong Connection ” , the EIA contingent how they expend three twelvemonth look into , infiltrating , and make up an astonishingly elaborate picture of how the felonious gangs and syndicates operate out of Shuidong . And they regain a terrifyingly efficient and adaptable arrangement , with a unmarried radical sending 20 shipments of pearl in a individual class .
As authorities crack down on bone being ship from Tanzania , they simply moved operations to Mozambique . When the value of tusk from East Africacrashed in China , the offense syndicates diversified and fork out intopangolin plate , while at the same time agitate focussing to the more moneymaking trade inivory from timber elephant . Rather than having shipments get in directly from Mozambique , the tusks – concealed in containers of plastic shot – were alternatively routed through South Korea first .
They found that the vicious gangs were taking their profits and merely reinvesting them back into the illegal wildlife trade , and had been mould out of Shuidong for the last 10 years apparently without fear of being catch , bribing official along the way of life .
“ The Formosan Government ’s decision to close its domesticated ivory mart by the remainder of 2017 is an admirable response to mounting international pressure to end the industrial - shell trouncing of Africa ’s elephants,”explainedthe EIA ’s Executive Director , Mary Rice . “ What EIA find in Shuidong , however , clearly shows multinational criminal web are work with near - amount impunity . It is life-sustaining that enforcement agency in Africa and China put these criminals out of patronage immediately . ”
