Ivory seized at Hai Phong port.
Photo shared courtesy of "CustomsNews" E magazine.
Hai Phong, Viet Nam — Customs officers at the Port of Hai Phong in Viet Nam uncovered seven tons of ivory in a shipment this March, the port’s largest-ever ivory detection.
The interception was made by a Port Control Unit (PCU), one of four units created under the joint United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) - World Customs Organization (WCO) Container Control Programme (CCP) in Viet Nam. PCUs are staffed by personnel trained by the Programme on targeting risks and on other techniques. In doing so, it allows law enforcement officers to systematically focus on import, export, and transit data to ensure that ‘high-risk containers’ are efficiently handled.
Trading in ivory, which comes from elephants, is illegal under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) – meaning that no commercial import or export of ivory is permitted. Nevertheless, ivory remains highly valued in many Asian countries for use in luxury products like piano keys, jewellery, furniture, or carvings.
The high demand has been devastating for elephants. The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) lists the African savannah elephant as ‘endangered’ – partly due to poachers and partly as a result of habitat loss – with the population decreasing 60 per cent over the last 50 years.
“Wildlife trafficking is a serious transnational organized crime with serious consequences,” noted Hanny Cueva-Betta, UNODC Global Programme on Crimes that Affect the Environment. “It can cause the extinction of species and biodiversity loss, with severe repercussions on local economies and well-being.”
Moreover, the high profits brought by trafficking in wildlife can be used to finance other criminal activities, including conflict,” she continued.
The container had originally been shipped from Africa before being re-routed. Smugglers often disguise the shipment’s origin in the hopes that it will allow them to avoid detection.
The case has now been transferred to Viet Nam’s Ministry of Public Security for investigation. UNODC is actively working to connect Port Control Units in Viet Nam with those in Africa, in the hopes that the sharing of information will assist in the prevention and interception of illegal wildlife shipments.
The UNODC-WCO Container Control Programme (CCP) was jointly launched by the World Customs Organization and UNODC to support Governments in establishing sustainable enforcement inter-agency structures in selected seaports to minimize the risk of maritime containers being exploited for trafficking of various illicit goods, such as drugs, precursor chemicals (for drugs and weapons), firearms, weapons of mass destruction, nuclear material, and other goods linked to organized crime.
To learn more about UNODC’s work to prevent and address crimes that affect the environment, including wildlife trafficking, click here.
