Page 54 - An Illusion of Complicity: Terrorism and the Illegal Ivory Trade in East Africa

Tom Maguire and Cathy Haenlein 41

Organisation have run workshops in Kenya to improve higher-level investigatory capacity by
bolstering co-operation frameworks. This kind of training operates in a crowded space, however.
A number of external parties are involved who do not necessarily share the same means and
ends. This support needs to be better co-ordinated and harmonised to achieve its aims.44

Meanwhile, several international initiatives have responded to the perceived need for regional
fora to allow information sharing across sectors. The UNODC’s Indian Ocean Forum on Maritime
Crime initiative was launched in February 2015, targeting four areas in which overlaps have
been identified: wildlife and forestry crime; heroin trafficking; people trafficking and smuggling;
and fisheries crime. The initiative aims to promote a shared understanding of the issues
amongst Indian Ocean and East African states; develop more co-ordinated regional counter-
strategies; and improve international and inter-agency information sharing.45 The extension of
the UNODC’s Container Control Programme to East African ports and plans for inter-agency and
multi-commodity Transnational Organised Crime Units in Kenya and Tanzania aim for similar
effects in the long-term. By conducting vetting and due diligence checks with local security
officials, it is hoped that more ‘secure’ units can be formed, with which intelligence and evidence
can be shared on the basis of greater trust.46

Yet support for even the finest law-enforcement initiatives can be undermined by corruption
and a lack of political will to use enhanced capacities to pursue well-connected kingpins. CITES,
TRAFFIC and the UNODC have consistently highlighted the failure of investigators in East Africa
to push beyond the point of detection or seizure, leaving higher-level networks in place.47 No
senior ivory traffickers in Kenya have been prosecuted, even since the introduction of more
stringent legislation in 2014. Capacity-building cannot be divorced from initiatives aimed at
rooting out corruption and fostering political will.

Embracing efforts to pursue higher-level criminals further up the chain presents more challenges.
Indeed, making higher-level arrests, targeting syndicate profits, and concentrating on increasing
seizures rates can induce higher operating cost and risk. Meanwhile, supply-chain disruption will
always be inherently temporary unless actions are co-ordinated across multiple jurisdictions,
targeting multiple commodities. There is already evidence of networks responding to higher-

44. CITES, ‘65th Meeting of the Standing Committee, Geneva (Switzerland), 7–11 July 2014: Elephant
Conservation, Illegal Killing and Ivory Trade’, July 2014, p. 4; authors’ interview with UNODC
officials 1 and 2; authors’ interview with INTERPOL officers 1 and 2.

45. UNODC, ‘Indian Ocean Forum on Maritime Crime: Briefing Note’, 24 March 2015; authors’
interview with UNODC officials 1 and 2.

46. Jorgic, ‘As Heroin Trade Grows, a Sting in Kenya’; authors’ interview with UNODC officials 1 and 2;
authors’ interview with INTERPOL officers 1 and 2; authors’ interview with UNODC official 3, 20
May 2015. The Transnational Organised Crime Units are being supported by the UK NCA, UNODC,
INTERPOL and other international security agencies partnering with the Tanzanian and Kenyan
governments.

47. See, for example, CITES, ‘65th Meeting of the Standing Committee, Geneva (Switzerland), 7–11
July 2014: Elephant Conservation, Illegal Killing and Ivory Trade’, p. 4, and comments of UNODC
Executive Director Yury Fedotov at the 2015 UN Crime Congress available at UN News Centre, ‘UN
Conference Stresses Brave Need to Combat Wildlife Crime’, 19 April 2015, <http://www.un.org/
apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=50563#.VdJCavm6fIX>, accessed 23 August 2015.