A single transnational criminal network may be poaching elephants across southern and eastern Africa, a new study has claimed. The criminals may be trying to shift base to the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) from east Africa, warned the report published February 14, 2022, in the journal Nature Human Behaviour. Such criminal networks may be seeking to use porous borders of the DRC as well as the weak rule of law there to their advantage, the study said. Scientists teamed up with detectives from from the United States Department of Homeland Security for genetic analysis of ivory seizures over 17 years. The team analysed 4,320 savannah (Loxodonta africana) and forest (Loxodonta cyclotis) elephant tusks, selected from 49 large ivory seizures totalling 111 tonnes. These were shipped out of Africa between 2002 and 2019.