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Reports from HPR's Dave Lawrence

New Report Highlights Role of Asian Diplomats in Rhino Extinction Crisis

Steve Evans

The Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime has detailed the disturbing role of Asian diplomats and crime syndicates in rhino poaching. The new report said corruption in South Africa and Mozambique contributed to Asian diplomats paying off officials to avoid prosecution. Among many sordid details, it noted syndicates like the Xaysavang Network exploited legal trophy hunts to obtain rhino horn using young women from Thailand, workers from strip clubs and massage parlors, who posed as hunters.

The report said North Korean diplomats were busted with rhino horn 16 times, only to be quickly whisked out of the country by officials, including North Korea’s ambassador to South Africa. Chinese nationals caught with rhino horn routinely disappear after being bailed out. Report author Julian Rademeyer said there were even questionable sales of live animals to a Vietnamese zoo. He said diplomats or government delegations from North Korea, Vietnam and China abused their diplomatic status, contributing to an “unwinnable war”.

Rademeyer said numerous Chinese and Vietnamese diplomats were deeply entrenched in rhino horn smuggling, secure in the knowledge that being caught can usually be resolved by paying a fine or a bribe. He said since the beginning of the current rhino poaching crisis, no arrested Vietnamese or Chinese nationals have been jailed. Huge population depletions due to the rapid rise in poaching of wild rhinos could come in a few years, according to the report, putting the animals on the doorstep of extinction, even more quickly than previous estimates.

Read the complete report here.

Find HPR Helping Hand segments relating to the rhino crisis here

Dave Lawrence is the local host of All Things Considered, Road Stories (formerly Off the Road) and Stargazer.
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