This archive of published media articles about wildlife crime in Namibia aims to:
Public access to information is a vital component of ensuring community engagement in prevalent issues. Wildlife crime is one of the pressing environmental issues of our time.
Wildlife crime investigations are generally covert operations requiring utmost confidentiality to succeed. Investigations and prosecutions in complex cases may take months or even years to complete. For this reason, the information that can be released to the public without compromising cases is often limited. Nonetheless, the Namibian government strives to share as much information as possible with the public.
The Namibian media has welcomed this approach and regularly publishes statistics and feature articles on wildlife crime. These are entered into the database at regular intervals, creating a comprehensive archive of wildlife crime reporting in Namibia.
Explore your search results using the filter checkboxes, or amend your search or start a new search.
In an unrelated incident, an integrated operation led to the arrest of two suspects in Gansbaai on Friday, 17 February 2023. The team set up a vehicle checkpoint on the R43 between Gansbaai and Stanford and stopped a suspicious minibus taxi. They searched the vehicle and the occupants and confiscated 3608 units of abalone. This has an estimated to have a street value of R1.4 million.
Attachment | Size |
---|---|
SA_2023_02_Two arrested for illegal possession of abalone_The South African.pdf | 167.43 KB |
The police in the Eastern Cape are searching for poachers who shot, killed, and dehorned two rhinos on a safari farm in Paterson on Wednesday evening, 1 February.
Attachment | Size |
---|---|
SA_2023_02_Police on the hunt for rhino poachers who killed two rhino_The South African.pdf | 317.53 KB |
Data from the Kenya Wildlife Service indicates that between 2014 and 2022, dogs led to the documentation of 102 incidents of wildlife trafficking. About 114 people linked to these incidents were arrested and prosecuted during the period. "The dogs are key in deterring these crimes. These cases have gone down because traffickers are now aware of the strict security deployed in our borders, airports, and even ports.
Attachment | Size |
---|---|
KEN_2023_01_Poaching and trafficking up_Journal of African Elephants.pdf | 263.3 KB |
Buyers are being offered more than 200 species of animals threatened with extinction or declining population on social media platforms by illegal wildlife traders. The animals are then transported by air out of Africa and in some instance, by boat.
This highly lucrative illicit business is managed by organised criminal groups through a variety of payment mechanisms. These mechanisms, including cash transactions and bulk cash smuggling, trade-based money-laundering, international bank transfers through legal businesses and nominee bank account holders, are key to advancing the objectives of criminal organisations.
Attachment | Size |
---|---|
Initial analysis of the financial flows and payment mechanisms behind wildlife and forest crime.pdf | 17.76 MB |