Chinese wildlife trafficking kingpin nabbed at JKIA

A Chinese wildlife trafficking suspect was arrested at JKIA after attempting to re-enter Kenya. [Courtesy]

A Chinese national jailed for eleven years in his home country for trafficking in wildlife trophies has been arrested as he tried to sneak back into Kenya. 

Xue Jingme, 54, and holder of passport number EJ9670115, was seized on Saturday at the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport (JKIA) after landing from China. The suspect was taken to Langata Police Station for detention, awaiting deportation.

The Immigration Department had issued a Red Alert after being requested by the Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS). According to the officials, Jingme is the mastermind of an ivory trafficking syndicate operating in Kenya. 

The suspect was jailed by a Chinese Shenyang Court for 11 years after he was found guilty of smuggling 1,226 pieces of ivory beads from Kenya to China in November 2013.

He was arrested in Nairobi on January 14, 2014, during the first-ever China-Africa joint sting intelligence-led operation coordinated by the Lusaka Agreement Task Force (LATF).

Two days after his arrest, his two accomplices were arrested while entering China. One was a man identified as Zheng, who allegedly helped buy ivory in Kenya and paid smugglers USD 820 (Sh70,520) to USD 1640 (Sh141,040) each time.

Another woman, identified as Li, and said to be Jingme’s girlfriend, was also arrested after she was found to have been aiding the passage of the ivory through customs.

During the operation, law Enforcement officers from 28 countries conducted a joint one-month global operation, code‐named “Operation Cobra II”, targeting wildlife criminals.

The operation was coordinated by an International Coordination Team (ICT) based in Nairobi and Bangkok and chaired by LATF and China National Inter‐agency CITES Enforcement Coordination Group (NICECG), with links to countries across Africa, Asia and the USA.

Over 400 suspects were arrested, with more than 350 major wildlife seizures. Also seized during the operation were 36 rhino horns, over 3 metric tons of elephant ivory, over 10,000 turtles, over 1,000 skins of protected species, over 10,000 European eels, and more than 200 metric tons of rosewood logs.

“The suspect had earlier been arrested for the offence of dealing with wildlife trophies in 2014 and deported to China, where he was convicted and sentenced to 11 years imprisonment,” states a police report.   

The KWS and other law enforcement agencies have enhanced operations to combat wildlife crime while working with other institutions to cement collaboration towards combating transnational wildlife crime.

According to recent research, the elephant is the species most impacted by wildlife crime. The study titled Profiling prosecuted wildlife crimes in Kenya indicates that illegal grazing offences are the most prevalent offences, followed by trophy and bushmeat-related offences.