He smuggled more than 560 kilograms of ivory with a case value of 23.47 million yuan, and only gained 100,000 yuan from it.
Get 100,000 yuan and lose 11 and a half years of freedom
On July 28, 2020, the Nanjing Environmental Resources Tribunal of Jiangsu Province opened a public hearing in the Changzhou Intermediate Court to hear an extremely large ivory smuggling case. The Changzhou Procuratorate's post prosecutor Li Mingchun and his assistant Hong Miao appeared in court to support the prosecution. The court found that Dai was guilty of smuggling precious animal products. He was sentenced to eleven years and six months in prison and confiscated 500,000 yuan of personal property because of his confession in court, pleaded guilty and punished. It was identified that Dai’s smuggling of ivory weighed more than 560 kilograms and the case value was 23.47 million yuan. It is currently the largest number of smuggled ivory cases and the largest value involved in Jiangsu Province.
Modified vehicles to transport ivory
In December 2018, Dai and the Vietnamese criminal suspect Anan (a separate case dealt with) agreed to purchase more than 500 kilograms of African ivory. Anan arranged to smuggle ivory from Vietnam into China in two batches and transport them to a designated place in Dai, Changzhou. On the 26th, the long-distance transport driver Huang (handled in another case), in cooperation with others, drove a Honda car and smuggled Anan to the 36th section of Dongxing City, Guangxi, with a weight of 291 kilograms of African ivory, hiding in a modified Honda car from Dongxing City. Transported to the underground garage of a community in Wujin District, Changzhou City. The next day, Dai and Wang and others completed the transfer of ivory at the agreed place. After that, Dai paid 1.1 million yuan for the ivory to the account designated by Anan.
In January 2019, Dai met with Anan in Hanoi, Vietnam, and selected nearly 300 kilograms of ivory, and agreed to smuggle the ivory into the country in the same way as before. In February 2019, Huang drove the same vehicle last time to smuggle 34 sections of African ivory weighing 272 kilograms from Anan to Dongxing City to Changzhou. The next day, Dai and others completed the transfer of ivory at the designated location.
When Dai and others were transporting ivory, they were arrested on the spot by Changzhou customs officers, and 272 kilograms of ivory were seized. After being identified by the Wildlife Judicial Appraisal Center, the 34 pieces of ivory seized on the spot were all ivory from an African elephant or an Asian elephant.
According to the original State Forestry Administration's "Notice on Issuing Value Standards for Smuggled Ivory and Products Involved in Criminal Cases of Destroying Wildlife Resources", the unit price of ivory products involved in the case of living elephants is 41667 yuan/kg. The above two batches of smuggled ivory products A total of 70 pieces of 563 kilograms of ivory, worth 23.47 million yuan.
"It only made 100,000 yuan in total"
Dai said that because he wanted to do other business with Anan, he agreed to sell smuggled ivory. He knew that smuggling ivory was illegal, so he bought a mobile phone card with a virtual number to use it. When handing over the ivory, he borrowed a friend’s licensed car for transportation, and also specially looked for it. A hidden underground garage handed over ivory, but was still caught.
In September 2019, the Changzhou City Procuratorate filed a public prosecution to the court for Dai's alleged crime of smuggling precious animal products. The indictment found that: Dai knew that ivory was a precious animal product prohibited by the country from importing and exporting, but he still purchased from others outside the country and sold it domestically for profit. The circumstances were particularly serious and violated Article 15 of the Criminal Law. The facts of the crime were clear and the evidence was reliable and sufficient. The criminal responsibility should be investigated for the crime of smuggling precious animal products.
When he got the indictment, Dai cried: "He only earned 100,000 yuan in total, but he has to go to jail for more than 10 years..."
According to the prosecutor handling the case, the sentence for suspected illegal resale of ivory is not determined by weight or profit, but by value. Dai’s reselling of ivory was worth 23.47 million yuan. Although he only obtained a transaction price difference of 100,000 yuan, according to relevant judicial interpretations, smuggling of precious animal products with a value of more than 1 million yuan was deemed "extraordinarily serious" and sentenced to more than ten years. Fixed-term imprisonment or life imprisonment, and confiscation of property.
Sanctions
After the case of Dai smuggling precious animal products, the next family, Bu and Shen, were arrested on suspicion of illegally purchasing precious and endangered wild animal products.
Bu confessed that he had bought ivory from Dai before and kept in touch with him, and the other party would notify him if they had the goods. Dai asked him to help find someone to buy ivory, so he introduced Shen to Dai. "The ivory I bought is used to make penholders, and the leftovers are made of prayer beads, bracelets, toothpicks, etc. We know that the ivory is smuggled, and every time we go to Daimou to get the goods, we are trembling, but we always have a fluke mentality. It's okay this time, I'm bolder..."
The Wujin District Procuratorate of Changzhou City sued Bu and Shen to the court on suspicion of illegal purchase of precious and endangered wild animal products. The indictment found that: Bu and Shen knew that ivory was a wild animal product that could not be bought and sold illegally. For Dai’s illegal purchase, Bu paid 623,000 yuan and illegally purchased more than 100 kilograms of ivory products worth more than 4.16 million yuan; Shen paid 230,000 yuan to Dai and illegally purchased 45 kilograms of ivory products worth 1.87 million yuan. Similarly, the sentence for them was based on the value of the ivory involved. At present, the case has been heard in court, and Bu and Shen will also face more than ten years in prison.
Ji Ping Jiang Guonian