International authorities have finally begun cracking down on the illegal trade in exotic pets, a $20 billion a year industry that wreaks havoc on local ecosystems while posing a huge health threat to animals and humans alike. Last July, INTERPOL teamed up with the World Customs Organization in a coordinated global bust of animal traffickers across the globe, arresting over 600 suspected traffickers while rescuing thousands of trafficked animals, from snakes, turtles, and birds to bears and lions.

A Serval, Small Wildcat from Africa, Rescued by Cat Tales Zoological Photo by Matt Reinbold

Similar busts were carried out in 2017 and 2018 but the latest sting operation, dubbed “Operation Thunderball,” was the largest and most successful to date.

The traffic in exotic pets is only one part of the $200 billion wildlife trade industry, most of it legal. Nations in Africa and Southeast Asia especially sell animals raised in captivity to zoos and as well as animal skins to wholesalers (e.g. leather) and body parts o scientific laboratories. An international treaty signed in 1973, the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) is supposed to monitor and regulate the trade through diplomatic coordination and intelligence sharing.

But few countries have enough inspectors available to provide effective enforcement at points of entry. On-site monitoring is so lax that many traffickers can operate with virtual impunity. And in recent years, the wildlife trade has begun flourishing online, in a regulatory gray area, making regulation even more difficult.

That means even the legal wildlife trade often exceeds established limits while the illegal trade is barely noticed unless a special global-wide effort is made to go after trafficking rings based on months of intelligence gathered from local sources, including former traffickers turned informants.

Unlike the legal trade, most illegally trafficked animals aren’t bred in captivity but are simply captured in the wild and then shipped clandestinely — usually to the United States, Europe and Asia where the biggest consumer markets are.

There are several serious problems associated with the illegal wildlife trade. One is that the vast majority of the animals trafficked (as many as 80%, depending on the species) die in transit, largely because of the cruel ways they are shipped, ostensibly to avoid detection. Many animals are drugged and stuffed in suitcases for hours and even days with no food or water and little if any air to breathe.

Another is that the purchasers are usually impulse buyers who have no idea how to care for their new pet, especially as it grows beyond its original size. In a majority of cases, owners end up dumping their exotic purchases into the outdoors where they often survive to become an “invasive species” that mates with other wildlife and disrupts local eco-systems.

One of the most notorious examples is the Burmese python, which has come to dominate large swaths of the Florida Everglades, displacing other reptiles. Florida authorities are engaged in a massive effort to capture the pythons and repopulate the area with its “natural” predators. Exotic pets can also pose a major health hazard to humans because of the germs and diseases they carry. In a few highly publicized cases, dozens of people have fallen ill and died due to illnesses traced to illegally-obtained exotic pets.

The range of animals being captured for the illegal pet trade is truly phenomenal. It includes dozens of reptile and amphibian species as well as lions, bears, monkeys, exotic anteaters known as pangolins, and birds, especially parrots. It also includes a plethora of prized plant species as well as animal skins and ivory tusks, primarily from elephants.

Can the illegal trade in wildlife really be stopped when the demand is so high and ever-growing? It’s already become one of the world’s most lucrative illegal businesses, constituting the third-largest illicit trade globally, second only to illegal drugs and firearms. And the three forms of illegal trade tend to overlap because they often rely on the same transshipment points and trade routes as well as illegal financing mechanisms. One in-depth investigation has revealed the distinct patterns that characterize the illegal pet trade. For example, Asia’s illicit wildlife market – based largely in Japan but increasingly in China – is fueled by animals originating in East, Central and Southern Africa. By contrast, consumers in Europe and the United States typically receive their pets from South America, Eastern Europe, the Middle East, and North Africa.

As with illegal drugs, there is also a wide range of participants or stakeholders in the trade, including poachers and farmers, tourism guides, and local government officials on the take. The more the illegal trade becomes interwoven into the daily economies of poor and dependent nations, reinforced by bribes and government corruption, the harder it is to root out.

The latest global bust, like the previous two, was meant to send a signal to traffickers. In fact, these operations have barely made a dent in their operations – at least so far.

Even when caught, few traffickers serve time in prison for their crimes. Often they receive a hefty fine, which they pay, before simply turning around and resuming their lucrative operations.

Illegal Wildlife Trade (worldwildlife.org)
Africa: There Are No Winners in the Illegal Trade in Wildlife (allafrica.com)
Illegal Wildlife Trade (fws.gov)
Animal Trafficking: The Wildlife Trade You Don’t Want to Believe Exists (sentientmedia.org)

RWANDA - Felicien Kabuga, 84, is a Rwandan businessman, who made the bulk of his fortune in the 1970s in the tea trade. He is also the founder and primary funder of Radio Télévision Libre des Mille Collines (RTLM) and stands accused of using twenty different aliases to evade capture. After evading apprehension for 28-years, he was finally arrested by French police on 16 May 2020, in a suburb of Paris.

Ntarama Genocide Memorial, Ntarama, Rwanda, Photo by Bradford Duplisea

Kabuga was the richest man in Rwanda before the 1994 genocide when the Hutus slaughtered approximately 800,000 Tutsis between July and April of that year. RTLM was a leading news outlet for Rwanda, but a significant propaganda arm for the Hutu militia, Interahamwe. Daily programming included anti-Tutsi content, songs, and speeches, including the broadcast of the names of people who were killed earlier in the day.

Indicted by the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) in 1997, Kabuga evaded capture by frequently moving between several East African countries, including Kenya, where it is believed that the government harbored him as a fugitive for many years. During this time, he continued to do business in the country, held a Kenyan passport, and investigators charge that Kenyan government officials actively aided and abetted the fugitive. Kenya has repeatedly denied these allegations.

Efforts to locate Kabuga and bring him to justice were abandoned when the Tribunal closed in 2015. However, Serge Brammertz, a United Nations’ war crimes prosecutor, leading the division responsible for adjudicating outstanding war crimes from Uganda, ordered the search restarted last year after learning that Kabuga may be hiding in Europe. Authorities located Kabuga in his French apartment based on information obtained by surveilling his children.

The diplomatic relationship between France and Rwanda – a former French colony, has been extremely complicated since the days of the genocide. Rwandans accuse the French of complicity in the genocide since the French government was an ally of Hutu leader, Juvenal Habyarimana, (whose death was the final catalyst for the genocide), before the massacres.

Rwanda charges that the French initially supplied arms to militias, and UN peacekeepers from France often helped known killers escape capture and prosecution. Twenty-six years after the genocide, archived records about Rwanda and the genocide are still classified in France, despite numerous calls for the documents to be made public. Rwandans also accuse the French of harboring génocidaires, including Kabuga, since 1994. Six charged génocidaires by the Tribunal remain fugitives who are possibly being harbored by France.

Kabuga has denied alleged involvement in the genocide during a bail hearing in a French court at the end of May. On 3 June 2020, a French court ruled that he be extradited to Tanzania, the home of the UN Tribunal. His lawyers argue that Kabuga will not receive a fair trial at the Tribunal, especially one held in East Africa. Rwandans prefer that he be tried in his home country for war crimes, but there is no extradition treaty between Rwanda and France at this time. Kabuga’s legal team will appeal the decision to France’s highest court, which they hope will be successful due to their assertion that his ailing health makes him unable to travel.