IRINGA: Trio caught with 78 jumbo tusks after car chase

By Lucas Liganga, The Citizen Chief Reporter

Iringa, Tanzania. 

Police here have seized 78 elephant tusks, almost all of them ripped off baby and cow elephants. Only two belonged to a young bull.

The tusks were found after a high speed chase involving people suspected to be poachers, police and Good Samaritans at Ruaha Mbuyuni along the Iringa-Dar es Salaam highway on Monday evening.

The Iringa regional police commander, Senior Assistant Commissioner of Police Michael Kamuhanda, confirmed the seizure of the tusks yesterday. Three suspects are in custody.

The tusks weighed 211.6 kilogrammes and officials of the Ministry of Natural Resources and Tourism here valued them at Sh186,680,344. The 39 elephants killed were worth Sh900,340,830.

Preliminary investigations have revealed that the three suspects were ferrying the tusks from Masasi in Mtwara region to Dar es Salaam. “The suspects might be very clever as they managed to avoid detection all the way from Masasi to Iringa,” said the regional police boss. “They avoided detection in Tunduru, Songea, Njombe and Mafinga.”

Police at Igumbilo police checkpoint in Iringa district flagged down the vehicle but the suspects sped away before they could start inspecting it. Police gave chase but their vehicle did not have enough power to catch up with the speeding Toyota Nissan pick-up.

“The police at Igumbilo alerted their colleagues to erect a roadblock at Ruaha Mbuyuni,” said the RPC. “At this juncture, a Good Samaritan offered his Toyota Landcruiser pick-up and the real chase began.”

On seeing the roadblock, the suspects made a U-turn, driving back until they found a place to dump the vehicle about three kilometres off the main road. The vehicle plate numbers were T610 BUY initially but this had changed to DFP 4713 by the time it was abandoned.

The police teamed up with wananchi and chased the suspects until they caught up with them. Initial investigations reportedly established that the vehicle and the tusks belonged to a wealthy businessman in Masasi.

The vehicle used to chase the car carrying the tusks was offered by Akram Aziz, the director of Kilombero North Safaris Ltd, a tourist hunting firm based in Dar es Salaam.

Mr Aziz told this newspaper in a telephone interview yesterday that he was driving from Iringa to Dar es Salaam, accompanied by Dadi Karambeki, head of the anti-poaching unit for Kilombero North Safaris, when they got caught up in the drama. Karambeki is stationed at Lunda Wildlife Management Area in Iringa Rural District.

He added: “We invited the police into our vehicle and started chasing the suspects,” Mr Aziz added. “It was very dramatic but we managed to help the police arrest them and seize the vehicle with the contraband. It was spine chilling. The 78 seized tusks means 39 elephants had been killed.”

In November, Hong Kong authorities seized 500 ivory tusks from Tanzania worth $1.4 million (Sh2.24 billion).

The 500 pieces, weighing 1,300 kilogrammes, had been hidden in a shipping container that arrived in Hong Kong from Tanzania.

Police in Dar es Salaam arrested two Kenyans and a Tanzanian in November for unlawful possession of 214 elephant tusks and five mammal bones worth Sh2.1 billion. The suspects were arrested at Kimara Stopover in Kinondoni district. That haul represented the death of 91 elephants.

Source: The Citizen (12/12/2012): http://www.thecitizen.co.tz/component/content/article/37-tanzania-top-news-story/27733-trio-caught-with-78-jumbo-tusks-after-car-chase.html