The 18-year prison sentence handed to Chinese national Cong Yangzhong in late 2025 cast fresh light and exposed the scale of illicit financial flows fueling wildlife crime in Zimbabwe. Arrested in Harare on July 16, 2025, the 47-year-old was found in possession of three rhino horns and four pieces of raw ivory with a combined street value exceeding US$246 000. While Cong's case stood out because of the quantities of ivory involved, conservationists said such matters are becoming a permanent feature in courts around Zimbabwe. In February 2025, two Chinese nationals, Lin Wang and Fux Wang, appeared at the Harare magistrates court after they were caught at the Robert Gabriel Mugabe International Airport in Harare trying to smuggle out of the country rhino horns worth a combined US$480 000. In a separate case, Lin and Fux were caught by undercover detectives while trying to make arrangements to smuggle rhino horns worth US$120 000 with an agent in Harare's Alexandra Park. Li Song, a Chinese national allegedly at the centre of a poaching network in Zimbabwe for many years during the Robert Mugabe years, went under the radar in 2024 after she was arrested for allegedly importing large quantities of cyanide and storing it in unsafe locations. Cyanide was once a weapon of choice for poachers who killed hundreds of elephants at the Hwange National Park for their ivory. Li is rumoured to have escaped to her country after a Harare magistrate issued a warrant of arrest against her two years ago for skipping trial. While the National Prosecuting Authority of Zimbabwe (NPAZ) usually hails the arrests of the Chinese nationals as a signal that the fight against wildlife crimes is intensifying, conservationists said the cases were only a tip of the iceberg.