In South Africa, an operation was completed that could mark a turning point in the fight against international traffic of Corni di Rhinoceon. Six people were arrested with accusations ranging from the fraud to money laundering, passing through the violation of the law on biodiversity.
Among them stands out the name of John Hume, 84 years old, known for having managed the largest private reserve of rhinos in the world. With him also his lawyer, Isak du Toit, and four other suspicions connected to a criminal network that would have marketed over 960 direct horns in Asia. Now the six suspicions await the trial, scheduled for December.
According to investigators, the group would have exploited flaws in South African regulations, creating fraudulent permits that masked internal sales and then diverting the horns to the international black market. The economic value is impressive: with an average price of 60,000 dollars per kilo, a single horn can generate huge profits. The investigators have been talking about an active system for years and who has benefited from the uncertainties related to the debate on the legalization of trade.
Hume -related shadows also in the past
Hume is not a new name for the chronicles. Already in 2017 he had jumped to the honors of the news for winning a cause that reopened the internal sale of Corni in South Africa. Shortly afterwards he organized an online auction, translated into mandarin and Vietnamese, which aroused controversies globally.
Over the years he has always claimed that the legalization of international trade could be a solution to finance the protection of rhinos, claiming to have invested over 150 million euros to keep them safe. But for many environmentalists, its strategies have ended up feeding the markets that threatened to fight.
Precisely for these reasons, environmental organizations have accepted arrests as a turning point. Cathy Dean of Save the Rhino International stressed that every busy horn not only puts the rhinoceros at risk, but foods entire networks of organized crime. Even Mike Veale, founder of the Global Conservation Force, spoke of an emblematic case of “white -collar crime”, highlighting the risks of a legal trade destined to intertwine with illegal markets.
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