Until now.
Yang was detained in the Tanzanian capital Dar es Salaam after a high-speed chase and is apparently the most prominent Chinese national charged with wildlife trafficking in Africa. The short, bespectacled owner of a well-known Chinese restaurant doesn't fit the image of a poaching kingpin, but that's exactly what she is, according to Tanzanian officials.
Yang was behind an illicit trade worth millions of dollars, using her ties to the Chinese and Tanzanian elite to move ivory across the world, officials said. Ivory trafficking has resulted in immense damage to wildlife across Africa, but particularly in Tanzania. Between 2009 and 2014, the country's elephant population plummeted from 109,051 to 43,330.
"She was at the center of that killing," said Andrea Crosta, the executive director of Elephant Action League, a U.S.-based environmental watchdog group.
China's role in Africa's poaching crisis is no secret. The country consumes tons of ivory every year, much of it mixed into holistic medicine with no proven value. That demand has driven low-level poachers across the continent to massacre elephant and rhino populations. But the role played by Chinese business people based in Africa has been hazy.
The story of Yang, who will now be tried in a Tanzania court, might change the way people think about the global ivory trade. If she is convicted, it will turn out that one of Africa's wildlife-trafficking kingpins was also one of its most prominent Chinese interlocutors.
According to investigators, Yang came to Africa in the 1970s, just as China was beginning construction on a railway in Tanzania. She was a translator back then, one of her country's first trained Swahili speakers.
Yang moved around eastern Africa, becoming a well-known businesswoman, founding a company called Beijing Great Wall Investment and an eatery called Beijing Restaurant. By 2012, she was the secretary-general of the Tanzania China-Africa Business Council. She named her daughter Fei, the first character of the word for Africa in Mandarin.
All the while, Tanzanian investigators said Thursday, she was smuggling millions of dollars in ivory to her contacts in China, even financing poachers who targeted animals in protected areas.
"She played a tremendous role in the killing of animals," said a senior Tanzanian official who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the case publicly. "She helped buy the poachers guns and ammunition. She was the connection between the local brokers and the international market."
Tanzania's National and Transnational Serious Crimes Investigation Unit (NTSCIU) identified Yang more than a year ago and followed her role in the smuggling network, authorities said. They found that she was using her restaurant in downtown Dar es Salaam as a cover, sneaking ivory from outside of the city into food shipments that went to the kitchen, they said.
It was the same restaurant Yang had spoken proudly about in the Chinese press.
"Now I do not count on the restaurant to make money," she told the China Daily newspaper last year. "Instead, I see it as a place where people from China and Tanzania can communicate, get to know more friends and conduct information exchanges."
As China's investment in Africa boomed in recent years, rumors swirled about the relationship between the country's development projects on the continent and the illegal ivory trade. But Chinese smugglers were rarely arrested. They were too well-connected to the government, many suspected. Many said they believe that's how Yang managed to operate with impunity for so many years.
"When we think of a kingpin, we think of someone like Al Capone," Crosta said. "But this was someone who mingled with the country's elite, who blended in."
Tanzanian officials sent to arrest Yang last week surrounded her house for seven hours. She managed to sneak out a side door and jump into her car. She then led authorities on a car chase through part of the city.
"Eventually we cornered her," the senior Tanzanian official said. "She put her hands up."
Then Tanzanian law enforcement agents got their first up-close look at the woman they referred to as the Queen of Ivory. She was out of breath after running from them.
"That is the shark we were chasing," the Tanzanian official said.
Response:
I really enjoyed this article to the point of faithfully reading it to the end. Personally when I think of ivory smugglers little, old, Chinese women do not immediately come to mind. Thus, I was shocked to say the least when this article informed me on how notorious this lady was. This article seemed well written in my opinion, because they included different perspectives on this issue from various countries.
The audience that this article may have been trying to target is African law enforcement agencies (mainly Tanzanian), specifically ones that deal mainly with wildlife issues. Another targeted audience may have been African and Chinese citizens to shed light on this poaching issue, and inspire them to take action against poaching.
I do not think this article was very objective. As you read the article, you can easily pick up a bias against any poacher. The article tried to stay objective by describing a portion of Yang's personal life and even mentioning the fact that she named her daughter Africa in Mandarin. However, the next sentence returns to that bias, "All the while, Tanzanian investigators said Thursday, she was smuggling millions of dollars in ivory to her contacts in China, even financing poachers who targeted animals in protected areas." I believe the publisher holds the same bias as the writer of the article. I also think the readers may hold some bias for a few reasons. Firstly, they may have been already swayed by the title of this article. Words like 'most notorious' makes this lady already seem like she has committed a terrible crime, thus as readers read this article they have that thought in the back of their heads. Also, the title of this article attracts people who currently hold negative views on poaching which would lead to a bias while reading this article.
MLA source: Sieff, Kevin. "Prosecutors Say This 66-Year-Old Chinese Woman Is One of Africa's Most Notorious Smugglers." NDTV. The Washington Post, Sept.-Oct. 2015. Web. 13 Oct. 2015.
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