How to Trap Elephant Poachers With Their Own Technology

[eridani]

http://readersupportednews.org/news-section2/318-66/35114-how-to-trap-elephant-poachers-with-their-own-technology

The new techniques follow work done in neighboring Kenya, where poaching rates have nosedived. In both countries the police have started concentrating on the poachers' own technology – guns and phones – and using it against them. By combining that with old-fashioned detective work, they have captured more suspects.

"From just one arrest, you can open up the syndicate, and go up the ladder from grassroots to brokers, to dealers and transporters ... all the way up to international traffickers," said one agent from the squad. The history of a suspect's gun, the phone calls he or she makes, and the money they move, create a trail of evidence.

Tanzania has been hit hard by a global spike in poaching over the past decade. Its elephant population has dropped to about 43,000 in 2014 from 109,000 in 2009. Interpol has said a "significant portion" of ivory reaching international markets originated from elephant herds in Tanzania.

The region has also become a vital part of the African "Smack Track," a smuggling route for Afghan heroin bound for Europe; Western diplomats see a growing overlap between ivory smugglers and narcotics traffickers.

"They are all interlinked. Drugs traffickers in East Africa use the same people that weapons smugglers use and that the ivory smugglers use," said one Nairobi-based agent from the U.S. Drugs Enforcement Administration (DEA).