This Chinese “Ivory Queen” Who Smuggled Millions of Dollars of Elephant Tusks

Anti-poaching advocates say that countries importing the largest amounts of ivory are responsible for putting an end to the slaughter of about 30,000 African elephants a year. “Across Africa, they keep arresting small fish here and there”, Andrea Crosta, a spokesman for the Elephant Action League (EAL), told CNN.

In the past decade, Tanzania has lost around two-thirds of its elephant population to poaching, according to a report by the U.K.-based Environmental Investigation Agency.

Glan, who had been living in the country since the 1970s, appeared before a Dar es Salaam high court on Thursday.

Perhaps most shocking is that she is secretary-general of the Tanzania China-Africa Business Council, owning many cars, properties and a popular Chinese restaurant in Dar es Salaam. In what is being lauded as a major crackdown on the illegal ivory trade, a Chinese woman, dubbed the “Queen of Ivory”, has been charged in a Tanzanian court with smuggling nearly 1.9 tons of ivory worth $2.7 million. It’s for this reason that Tanzania has been considered the ground zero of elephant poaching in East Africa over the past several years, EAL reports in a press release. “When the case is transferred to the high court for hearing, she will enter a plea of not guilty”. China sent her to Africa in 1975 as a translator, when it started to help build Tanzania’s railway network. She reportedly assisted poachers to by buying guns and other weapons used in hunting elephants. Most of that ivory will come from Tanzania which is Africa’s largest source of ivory. As the leader of one of Africa’s biggest ivory smuggling rings, the chargers against her are hopefully the demise of a significant piece of poaching in Tanzania.

She was at faced on Wednesday in addition to two different Tanzanian guys, Manase Philemon and Silvanus Matembo, who might were usually purportedly coupled with worldwide poachers, merchants and purchasers, in accordance with the describe. In that time she has financed elephant poachers and supplied traders in illegal ivory. If convicted, she could face more than 20 years in jail.

“She played a tremendous role in the killing of animals”, an unidentified senior Tanzanian official said.

“Tanzania has dealt a serious blow to wildlife crime in the country”, she said, “but only concerted worldwide action can halt it in the long run”.

In Beijing, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said Friday she did not know about the case but asserted that China is committed to protecting endangered wildlife.

“Tanzania has proven how wrong the authorities in Switzerland were to let three Chinese traffickers go scot free”, said McLellan.

In February, China imposed a one-year ban on ivory imports amid criticism that its citizens’ desire for ivory threatens African elephants. “We must put an end to the time of the untouchables if we want to save the elephant”, said Crosta.