The woman, now dubbed the “Queen of Ivory”, is a Chinese national named Yang Feng Glan, 66, and has been followed by the Task Force for over a year.
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Paschal Shelutete, communications and press unit department head of the Tanzania National Parks, hailed the arrests and said that it was the most successful operation against pouching that he had ever seen. She owns a big restaurant in Dar es Salaam, and was even secretary general of the Tanzania-China Africa Business Council.
She ran a sophisticated supply chain between East Africa and China for about 10 years, Tanzanian authorities say.
A Chinese woman has been charged in a Tanzanian court with smuggling almost 1.9 tons of ivory – more than 700 elephant tusks worth almost $2.5 million. However, according to a few reports, Glen could have been involved since as early as 1980. Glan did not enter a plea and was remanded in custody to await a further hearing.
In September, Chinese President Xi Jinping and U.S. President Barack Obama made history by announcing that the two countries would protect elephants from the poaching crisis with almost complete bans on ivory imports and exports, promising “significant and timely steps to halt the domestic commercial trade of ivory”. In June, a government census revealed it had lost a catastrophic 60% of its elephants in five years.
“Tanzania has had the most serious elephant poaching of any country in recent years with few prosecutions, so this is an important case”, said WildAid CEO Peter Knights. She is connected to various companies overseas, all Chinese-owned, and circulates in the upper echelons of Chinese citizens living and working in Tanzania.
The US-based organisation Elephant Action League described Ms. Feng Glan as “the most notorious ivory trafficker brought to task so far”.
According to investigators, Yang came to Africa in the 1970s, just as China was beginning construction on a railway in Tanzania.
“Hopefully she can lead us to other major traffickers and corrupt government officials”, Crosta said. “We must put an end to the time of the untouchables if we want to save the elephant”.
“Everyone she has been dealing with will now become a target for law enforcement”.
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The three suspects allegedly committed the crime between January 1, 2000 and May 22, 2014.
