- A North Korean man arrested in a hotel in Dar es Salaam in possession of 500 elephant tusks will stand trial this week on charges of unlawful possession of the ivory and intent to trade it.
- Observers note that arrests of traffickers in Tanzania are not consistently followed up with careful investigation and effective prosecution.
- “Follow up investigations, including with international agencies and relevant stakeholders, are the key to unlocking data about the transnational actors, methods and routes involved in ivory trafficking and poaching dynamics,” said Rachel Mackenna, from the Environmental Investigation Agency.
A North Korean man is set to face trial in Tanzania this week following his arrest in April while in possession of 500 elephant tusks. Un Hyok Ra was arrested April 19 at a hotel in Dar es Salaam, and is scheduled on June 9 to answer to charges of unlawful possession of the ivory and intent to trade it.
Tanzania is a signatory to CITES, the global wildlife trade convention, which requires parties to conduct forensic analysis of ivory seizures of 500 kilograms (1,100 pounds) or more to determine where it came from. This is intended to support investigations that go beyond the typically low-level traffickers who are caught in possession.
Tanzanian police did not respond to questions from Mongabay about the origins of the seized ivory or who Ra allegedly planned to sell it to. During an administrative hearing on May 28, prosecutor Florida Wancelaus told the court only that investigations are ongoing.
Chris Morris, founder of wildlife crime monitoring group Saving Elephants through Education and Justice (SEEJ), based in neighboring Kenya, estimated that 504 tusks would weigh roughly 2,500 kg (about 5,500 lbs). In an email to Mongabay, he said law enforcement in the region does not always meet the CITES requirement to conduct DNA analysis on confiscated ivory.
“It remains to be seen if Tanzania will comply with this directive,” Morris wrote.
Morris, a former war crimes investigator, said Tanzanian authorities have often withheld information that would help sister agencies in the region and beyond trace and dismantle wider trafficking networks. He cited previous cases, including the 2017 conviction of Tanzanian ivory smuggler Boniface Mathew Malyango, who was linked to a poaching syndicate that operated across Tanzania, southern Kenya, Burundi, Mozambique and Zambia. His conviction was overturned on appeal in 2020 with little publicity.
In 2019, a Tanzanian court sentenced a Chinese national, Yang Fenglan, to 15 years in prison for smuggling more than 800 elephant tusks. Known as “the Ivory Queen,” Yang was alleged to have operated Africa’s biggest ivory trafficking cartel. In May 2021, the High Court rejected her appeal against her conviction.
“But what is not commonly known is that three years into her sentence, she was released on a presidential pardon,” Morris told Mongabay.
Rachel Mackenna, head of the elephant campaign at the Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA), said her organization’s Global Environmental Crime Tracker recorded 50 cases of ivory seizures in Tanzania between 2021 and 2025. While the confiscations show Tanzania’s efforts in fighting ivory trafficking, she said, the authorities have provided very little information as to the outcomes of related investigations and prosecutions.
“EIA maintains that seizures and arrests alone are not an enforcement outcome in and of themselves,” Mackenna told Mongabay in an email. “Follow up investigations, including with international agencies and relevant stakeholders, are the key to unlocking data about the transnational actors, methods and routes involved in ivory trafficking and poaching dynamics.”
She said sharing information about the status of prosecutions, the recovery of proceeds of crime, and penalties imposed helps in assessing effectiveness of measures aimed at disrupting and deterring wildlife crime.
Joyce Bazira in Dar es Salaam contributed to this report.
Banner image: Elephant, Serengeti, Tanzania. Image by sama093 via Flickr (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)
Poaching declines in Tanzania following prosecution of ivory trafficking ringleaders
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Cite this article
Charles Mpaka (2026). Huge ivory bust raises questions about follow-up investigations in Tanzania. Mongabay Conservation news. DOI: https://doi.org/10.66709/news-320774Credits
