The South Africa – Viet Nam Rhino Horn Trade Nexus (PDF ... - WWF

situation at the end-use market: viet nam
Wildlife products for sale in Asia.
karl ammann
in her restaurant] must have been sourced from her, not anyone else.” Representatives of the New Yorkbased
Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) allege that Tu Loan represents a very well-known trading
family with links to trafficking rings in Africa, Myanmar and America (Anon., 2011e).
Whilst the primary centres of trade for rhino horns in Vietnam remain Hanoi in the north and Ho Chi
Minh City in the south, informal trading networks that lie beyond the traditional medicinal community
are becoming increasingly more active in the trade. TRAFFIC’s research has found that there are at
least two major wholesalers of rhino horns who reportedly supply traditional medicine shops, hospitals
and clinics throughout the north, including businesses located in Hanoi, Hai Phong, Quang Ninh, Bac
Ninh, Bac Giang, Thai Binh, Nam Dinh, Vinh Phuc, Ninh Binh, Thanh Hoa and Nghe An. It is not
understood how many individuals are actively engaged as wholesalers in the south of the country, but
it is known that from bases in Ho Chi Minh City, the cities of An Tho, An Giang, Dong Nai and the
Central Highlands are serviced.
Like most illegal commodities, procurement of rhino horn often involves personal connections to
access networks of trade.
If you want the real rhino horn you have to be connected. I met Thao, a hairdresser shop owner, through
a mutual friend at the very popular Highlands Coffee shop on Le Loi Street, District 1. The second time
we met, I asked her about rhino horn. She said her uncle had purchased some for her grandfather who at
that time was dying of cancer; he has since died. Her uncle was a worker on the wharf at the Saigon
shipping ports and “knew people” (Smith, 2012b).
Numerous reports in Viet Nam suggest that the “people” with rhino horn referred to by the uncle
above are often government officials, or members of their retinues, who play active and important
roles as conduits in the trade between Africa and Asia. For example, the TIME magazine cover story
investigation reported two separate anecdotes describing government complicity in the trade, firstly a
female cancer patient in Hanoi claimed:
the source [of her rhino horn]? A friend who accompanied Vietnamese government officials to South
Africa (Beech and Perry, 2011),
whilst a second Hanoi man, working at a government institute but suffering from a serious liver disease,
reported:
receiving his cache [of rhino horn] from someone who worked for a Vietnamese embassy in southern
Africa (Beech and Perry, 2011).
The credibility of these anecdotal revelations is further buttressed by stronger evidence from South
Africa in which various Vietnamese Embassy personnel – the Commercial Attaché, the First Secretary,
an Embassy Counsellor – have either been arrested, captured on film or otherwise implicated in serious
instances of illegal rhino horn trafficking in the country (see “Involvement of Vietnamese Embassy personnel”
section above). Still other reports suggest that at least one former Pretoria-based Embassy
employee, Tran Manh, later became resident in South Africa and actively engaged in rhino horn trade
(Anon., 2008c). This individual’s wife, identified in media reports as Nguyen Thi Thu Thuy, was also
allegedly involved in the trade, with one unconfirmed report indicating she was once temporarily
arrested at Tan Son Nhat airport in Ho Chi Minh City but later released (Anon., 2008c).
Beyond Vietnamese officialdom in South Africa, a TIME magazine reporter indicated that Hanoi-based
rhino horn dealers frequently mentioned Vietnamese Embassies in Mozambique and, curiously, Ghana (a
West African country far beyond the geographical range of any of Africa’s extant rhino populations), as
other sources of rhino horn from Africa (H. Beech, pers. comm., 20 October 2010). In view of this evidence,
it is not surprising that TRAFFIC investigators, researching Viet Nam’s domestic commerce in
rhino horn in early 2009, repeatedly heard warnings from informants that the trade was a highly sensitive
issue in the country and that there was direct involvement of senior political figures, some of whom
are also engaged in the consumption of rhino horns. Virtually all Vietnamese government officials contacted
by TRAFFIC were reluctant to discuss the trade on the record or were in denial that there was any
problem at all. Since then, in the wake of the CITES CoP15 decision which identified Viet Nam as the
principal consumer country for illegal shipments of rhino horn and the subsequent mission of South
African law enforcement officers to Viet Nam for bilateral discussions in October 2010, the government
has gradually moved towards engagement, at least on the international level.
Another evolving feature of the trade, internet marketing of rhino horn, has proliferated in recent years
and represents a new channel of commerce in Viet Nam that generally functions independently from the
more entrenched trade structure embedded within the traditional medicine community. Product reliability
concerns notwithstanding (see “The presence of fake rhino horn in the domestic market” section
below), the ease with which rhino horn is purportedly available on Viet Nam’s internet is apparent:
All we had done to find this woman’s mobile number was to search for sung te giac (rhino horn) on Google.
The results had revealed about 20 advertisements, most on buy and sell sites (Smith, 2012b).
Moving to make a purchase, however, is far more difficult, certainly a consequence of the illegal nature of
the trade. One Western journalist described a futile attempt to visit a Ho Chi Minh City rhino horn dealer
in the Go Vap District of the city at an address obtained from a website offering horn. Upon arriving at
the designated street, but unable to locate the office because of the chaotic street numbering system:
I asked my translator, Giang, to call the number on the website to ask for directions … The woman
[said] “Why do you want to come to our office? We don’t have any products. Call us and our representative
from Sapa will come to you.” (The website said the company was headquartered in Sapa, in Viet
Nam’s far northern Lao Cai Province). Then Giang inquired about the rhino horn displayed on the website;
the woman’s guard went up quickly saying they did not stock it (although it was advertised with the
price – a cheap [VND unit price for rhino horn]. She was emphatic that we could not come to the
office (Smith, 2012b).
Such stories mimic TRAFFIC’s own efforts to track down those who advertise rhino horn through
Vietnamese-language websites on the internet. On such sites, six of which TRAFFIC has actively monitored
since 2009, rhino horns are described as authentic, but generally no specific place locations were
given and only mobile telephone numbers were provided in terms of contact details. As such, any
attempt to instigate a horn purchase always becomes a one-way vetting process with any face-to-face
meeting arranged by the dealers themselves, following multiple calls through various cell phone numbers
and other interactions. The inferred desire of these traders is to remain anonymous and beyond scrutiny,
a key feature of this avenue of trade that is certainly rooted in the illegal nature of the business.
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