A South African man has been sentenced to 17 months imprisonment after being caught with eleven pieces of Rhinoceros horn at Singapore's Changi Airport on 5 January 2020. Thurman Shiraazudin Aiden Matthews, 45, of Johannesburg, was arrested after the horn was detected during a routine x-ray check of his luggage as he passed through the airport en route to Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam. Mathews was unable to produce a valid export permit for the horn, which is covered by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), and claims he was offered 20 000 Rand (about US$11 000) to transport the horn by an unidentified Chinese man he met in Johannesburg in October 2019. The Singapore National Parks Board estimate that at least five Southern White Rhinoceros, Ceratotherium simum simum, died to produce the horn recovered, and that the material would have had a black market value of about Singapore $760 000 (about US$534 000).
Rhinoceros horn recovered from the luggage of a South African man arrested at Singapore's Changi Airport on 5 January 2020. Singapore National Parks Board.
Park authorities and private game reserves across Africa and Asia
have
been struggling with the problem of Rhino poaching for decades, but the
problem has become more acute in recent years, with over a thousand
killed in South Africa alone in 2017, and over 5500 in the past five
years. The country is home to about 20 000 Rhinos, about 80% of the
entire African population. The crime is extremely profitable, and widely
believed to be controlled by organised crime syndicates, which are
thought to have considerable influence over police and court officials
in many areas, which results in suspected poachers often being released
before they are brought to trial, often with only nominal bail payments.
Authorities in Singapore believe the horns came from at least five Southern White Rhinoceros, Ceratotherium simum simum. Singapore National Parks Board.
The Southern White Rhinoceros is currently the most common and widespread type of Rhinoceros, with a population estimated at between 17
212 and 18 915 individuals by the conservation organisation Save the
Rhino. The species is also found in Botswana, Kenya, Namibia, Swaziland,
Zambia, Zimbabwe, and Uganda, but around 90% of the population is
located in South Africa, making efforts to protect the species there
critical to its long term survival. The Southern White Rhinoceros is currently classified as Near Threatened on the Red List of Threatened Species.
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