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Namibian Wildlife Crimes article archive

This archive of published media articles about wildlife crime in Namibia aims to:

  • provide easy public access to published information and statistics
  • enable easy stakeholder access to articles
  • provide a comprehensive archive of wildlife crime reporting in Namibia

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.

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Displaying results 1 - 3 of 3
Wednesday, 7 May 2025
Wandera A, Muia W 2025. Gang who smuggled thousands of queen ants sentenced in Kenya.

A Kenyan court has sentenced four men to one year in prison or pay a fine of $7,700 (£5,800) for trying to smuggle thousands of live queen ants out of the country. The four suspects - two Belgians, a Vietnamese and a Kenyan - were arrested last month with live ants suspected to have been destined for collectors in Europe and Asia. They had pleaded guilty to the charges, with the Belgians telling the court that they were collecting the highly sought-after ants as a hobby and didn't think it was illegal.

Monday, 22 April 2024
Heinrich D 2024. Smuggler fined €4000 (N$81450) - 89 animals illegally taken alive from Namibia via Addis Ababa to Vienna.

A now 51 year old Czech who was found trying to smuggle 85 geckos, two snakes and two scorpions from Namibia into the EU via the Vienna Airport on the 23rd of May 2023 has been charged and fined 4000 Euros by a court in Austria (no date given) and all animals forfeited to the state. This was confirmed by the Head Public Relations Official of the Austrian Ministry of Finance, Steffan Trittner, after inquiring via e-mail a month ago. No further details were given because of "protection of data privacy".

Tuesday, 12 February 2019
Smith Y 2019. No bail for repeat offenders: Environment minister Pohamba Shifeta has pleaded with courts to deny bail to repeat offenders.

Environment minister Pohamba Shifeta says some of the 120 suspects arrested last year for wildlife crimes were repeat offenders who were out on bail for similar crimes. “It is discouraging when a suspect is arrested for a crime today and the next day commits the same crime again. We do not want to tell justice what to do, but a repeat offender should not be let out on bail,” Shifeta said yesterday.

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