Chinese nabbed at Jomo Kenyatta International Airport for smuggling ivory

Ivory bangles

By Cyrus Ombati

Nairobi, Kenya: A Chinese man was Monday arrested at the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport (JKIA), Nairobi for smuggling of 0.3 kilogrammes of ivory.

The man was found with the lower ivory while on transit from Lubumbashi, DRC Congo to China.

His plane had touched down at JKIA and was to connect when he was seized on Monday, police said.

Police said the ivory was in form of bangles.

Airport CID boss Joseph Ngisa said the arrest was made on Monday evening and that the man was to appear in court Tuesday to face charges of being in possession of the ivory.

“He says he bought the ivory thinking they were mere bangles but we suspect much is into it,” said Ngisa.

He added they are seeing an increase of Chinese suspects originating from the region with the ivory but they are keen to stop the practice.

The arrest came a week after another 40-year-old man was found with similar luggage as he left Mozambique to China. The man was found with more than 3kg of the ivory on January 18.

Two days earlier, another Chinese had been arrested with ivory, leopards' skin and multiple passports on January 16. He is believed to be behind a number of cases of smuggling of people and ivory in the country, police said.

The 41-year-old suspect was arrested at an apartment with goods worth millions of shillings in the posh Riverside estate, Nairobi.

Illegal ivory trade

This comes even as Kenya and Chinese government are collaborating to fight poaching and illegal trade of wildlife.

The international trade in elephant ivory, with rare exceptions, has been outlawed since 1989 after elephant populations in Africa dropped from millions in the mid-20th century to some 600,000 by the end of the 1980s.

Ivory trade is banned under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES).

East African nations have recently recorded an increase in poaching incidents.

The illegal ivory trade is mostly fuelled by demand in Asia and the Middle East, where elephant tusks and rhinoceros horns are used to make ornaments and in traditional medicines.

Africa is home to an estimated 472,000 elephants, whose survival is threatened by poaching and the illegal trade in game trophies, as well as a rising human population that is causing habitat loss.

To demonstrate the seriousness and commitment to end the menace, China recently burnt six tones of the ivory.