Wildlife crime. Second Guinea Conakry trafficker arrested and facing jail.

A second high profile Guinean Conakry trafficker has been arrested following an operation carried out by INTERPOL, Guinean environment officials and GALF, a-Guinea Conakry NGO fighting to protect endangered animals and led by French environmentalist Charlotte Houpline.

Mamadou Kaba was arrested last Thursday November 28 2013 in the Nongo municipality and he is presently in preventive detention after he appeared at the Dixinn court a day after his arrest. He was arrested with 43 different objects, most of them ornamental chains and bracelets produced from elephant Ivory.

Mamadou Kaba (L) in chains. his 99 days of theft are over

Like in most parts of Africa, thousands of elephants are killed annually by poachers who are only interested in their highly prized Ivory and if these continues unchecked, there will soon be no elephants left on the continent. Elephants are protected through a 1997 Guinean forestry law and defaulters can be sentenced for up to a year if caught contravening the law.

Less than a month earlier, Ousmane Dialllo, another notorious trafficker received a six months prison term following another elaborate investigations carried out by the same organizations that have now helped to provide the evidence needed to arrest Kaba. Diallo admitted to have trafficked more than 500 chimpanzees. He was also  ordered to pay 120.000.000 GNF (US $17. 300)

Kaba was the main Guinean contact for an elaborate international network of traffickers involved in the killing and production of chains and bracelets and investigations revealed he received most of his Ivory from neighbouring Benin.

Because of the booming trade in Ivory that is ongoing in Asia, an average of 96 elephants are killed across the African continent each day representing 30.000 deaths annually. Conservative estimates indicate there will be no elephants left in the wild in Africa by 2039 if traffickers like Diallo and Kaba are no stopped.

Bracelets produced with Ivory seized from Kaba

On November 11 2013, the American government destroyed an impressive 6 tonnes of seized Ivory in Denver Colorado in an attempt by the Obama administration to show it was serious in its fight to stop poaching and the destructive Ivory trade.