Tanzanian Court sentences Yang Fenglan, an Ivory Smuggler to 15 years in Jail

A Chinese national, Yang Fenglan, an Ivory smuggler,  has been sentenced to 15 years in jail by Tanzanian court

News originating from Tanzania is that a prominent Chinese businesswoman, Yang Fenglan, nicknamed the "Ivory Queen", has been sentenced to 15 years in jail for smuggling hundreds of elephant tusks. Two of her accomplices, two Tanzanian citizens, were also jailed for the same number of years. 

Following her arrest, she was accused and found guilty of operating one of Africa's biggest ivory-smuggling rings, responsible for smuggling $2.5m (£1.9m) worth of tusks from not less than 400 elephants between 2000 and 2014 from Tanzania to the Far East. 

According to the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), a global environmental body, the population of African elephants has fallen to 415,000, a drop of 110,000 over the last 10 years as a result of poaching. 

The illegal trade is fuelled by demand from East Asia, especially China, where ivory is used in the making of ornaments and jewelry. 

Yang appears to be a very popular figure in the Eastern Africa nation where she has resided and worked since the 1970s. She even runs a Chinese restaurant as well as an investment company in Dar es Salaam. 

Her property has been ordered to be repossessed by the court in her city of residence before her arrest. 

Environmental and animal activists voiced their support on the arrest because she was seen as playing a pivotal role in the illegal ivory trade. Most of the arrests made in past have tend to implicate mostly minor players.

Source: Link