There is a hive of activity just before midday at Johannesburg’s Park Station as Zimbabwean bus crews prepare to set out on their long trip home.
But behind the hustle and bustle of ferrying passengers across borders lies a shadowy smuggling ring, threatening to help poachers wipe out Zimbabwe’s wildlife population.
Melusi Moyo – not his real name – a bus driver, has for long been part of the network. He has moved a broad range of illegal goods through Beit Bridge, the border between Zimbabwe and South Africa. But five years ago his close friend was jailed in South Africa for trafficking ivory. Moyo hastily quit his job, fearing for his life.
“It really scared me when my friend got caught. At the time I was in the business,” Moyo confessed. He was referring to the trade in illicit ivory, which he did on behalf of a Harare-based politician fronting for some Chinese dealers in South Africa.
“I wasn’t the one selling it; I was only the transporter so I was paid a ‘cut’ after taking the risk of moving the items through the border,” he explained.
Well paying
It is not easy to kick the habit once one is into smuggling, especially when “it’s well-paying”, Moyo said. Some bus drivers are still cashing in on the corruption at Beit Bridge and many have such good connections in high places that they believe it is safe for them to continue doing so.
Even with many security checkpoints manned by armed police and soldiers, and high razor-wired perimeters, there is no let-up in smuggling across Africa’s busiest border. So the illegal trade has continued to thrive, driven by demand for ivory souvenirs in China and other Asian countries.
What makes it difficult for border authorities to smash the ivory and rhino horn trading rings are the strong political ties. Many of the buses and haulage trucks plying the Zimbabwe-South Africa routes via Beit Bridge are linked to politicians, according to a customs source.
Meanwhile, South African revenue authorities reported recently that they had recovered ivory valued at over R16,000 late last year at Beit Bridge. This was after a customs official found it concealed in the engine compartment of a bus crossing into South Africa from Zimbabwe.
A secret
Officials have kept the identities of the bus and those involved in the incident a closely-guarded secret. Repeated efforts by this paper to get more details from South African revenue authorities concerning the incident have been fruitless.
Contacted to shed more light, a former spokesman for the revenue agency SARS professed lack of knowledge about the matter. “I’m not aware of the incident, but will try to find out and get back to you,” said former SARS spokesman Adrian Lackay. He never returned the phone call as earlier promised, and he resigned from his post last month. But this paper can reveal for the first time that the bus involved is owned by a popular South African luxury cross-border bus company (name withheld). The Zimbabwean has been reliably informed that the person who was driving the bus, a Zimbabwean national, was arrested following the ivory discovery.
Fined and released
Sources said the driver was not the owner and was fined and released from jail shortly after being busted. In a controversial turn of events, he has since landed a job with a South Africa-based bus company allegedly owned by Grace Mugabe.
A prominent conservationist said the stories of ivory or rhino horns being concealed in engine parts and moved across the border were worrying. “This has been going on for several years,” said chairman for the Zimbabwe Conservation Task Force, Johnny Rodrigue. “The problem is authorities at the border don’t earn very much so if they are offered money to turn a blind eye, they do it.” Rodrigues decried the lack of responses to the wildlife crisis by regional governments; at a time when elephants in Zimbabwe were under siege. The Zimbabwe government is currently locked in a bitter row with conservationists after capturing baby elephants with plans to export them to some Asian countries.
“All Zimbabwe has said is that nothing will deter them from exporting the elephants,” Rodrigues explained.
At the heart
A 2007 report by the Convention on Trade in Endangered Species (Cites) identified Zimbabwe as being at the heart of the illegal ivory trade. The smuggling of ivory, according to Cites, was rife in southern Africa due to a critical inability by some countries to reign it in.
“Major routes for smuggling ivory include via the Beit Bridge border between Zimbabwe and South Africa,” according to the Cites report. “…out of Zimbabwe via Mozambique and through Zambia to Tanzania. And out of Zimbabwe via the Chette Gorge, where boats have been used to move commercial sized quantities of ivory from Zimbabwe through Zambia and Tanzania to China.”
Post published in: Business