Report cites Macau as shipping port for wildlife smuggling

The Hong Kong Wildlife Trade Working Group is calling on its government to enhance its current enforcement strategy against wildlife smuggling, also citing Macau as a shipping port for these syndicates.

In a report titled “Trading in Extinction – The Dark Side of Hong Kong’s Wildlife Trade,” the non-governmental organization noted that over the last decade, the diversity of endangered species imported into Hong Kong has increased by 57 percent.

At the same time, the estimated value of the trade has increased by 1,600 percent, added the report conducted by Hong Kong animal rights associations and international NGOs.

The group believes that since Hong Kong is the largest cargo airport, the SAR’s illegal wildlife trade has been increasing, thus leading to a global extinction crisis.

The report cited that the Shuidong Syndicate, led by a Hong Kong businessman, has reportedly freighted quantities of ivory and pangolin from Africa to mainland China inside shipments of plastic waste, possibly since the 1990s.

It also alleges that the Teng Group, comprised of Taiwanese and Philippine nationals, run an ivory empire reportedly earning as much as HKD39 million every two months from regular shipments of tusks to Taiwan via Hong Kong and Macau, as well as through money laundering and drug trafficking.

The report said that 603 ivory tusks were hidden as part of a timber shipment destined for re-export to Macau.

The Teng Group was said to have operated out of Cameroon and Nigeria, sending ivory to Taiwan, and utilizing both Macau and Hong Kong as transshipment ports.

Also, the report recalled that on March 4, 2016, the Zhuhai Border Defence Force received a tip-off that someone was planning to smuggle goods from Hong Kong to mainland China, via Zhuhai.

“That evening, in the sea north of Qi’ao Island, Zhuhai, officials discovered an unregistered 8-meter long boat travelling at high speed from Hong Kong towards Zhuhai,” the report noted.

“Inspections found boxes in the hold of the boat and scattered around it on the beach. 221 pieces of ivory were found in the boxes, weighing around 450kg in total,” it added.

With the expansion of regional trade agreements, facilitated through the likes of the Belt and Road Initiative and expanding cross-border infrastructure, such as the Hong Kong–Zhuhai–Macau Bridge, the group feared that trade routes would multiply, providing further options for traffickers.

The Hong Kong Wildlife Trade Working Group stated that “gaps in legislation, enforcement and monitoring have allowed the city’s illegal wildlife trade to continue and in recent years to proliferate.”

It also noted that with its current enforcement focus on prosecuting carriers (also known as mules) instead of investigating and prosecuting the networks and organized criminality, a reputation as a ‘black hole’ or ‘safe harbor’ for such activities has developed and will likely worsen unless addressed.