More alarms over Indonesian rhino poaching after latest arrest

PALEMBANG/PANDEGLANG, Indonesia — Authorities in Indonesia are investigating possible links between a recent find of rhino horns for sale and a massacre of Javan rhinos that is still being tried in court.

Police working with officers from the Ministry of Environment and Forestry announced on August 27 the arrest of a 60-year-old man in Palembang, South Sumatra province, for allegedly attempting to sell eight rhino horns, five elephant ivory tobacco pipes and three dugong tusks. The arrest was made on August 23 during a rope operation when the suspect, identified only by the initials ZA, attempted to sell the products.

Authorities said they had identified four of the rhino horns as belonging to Indonesian species, and the other four from abroad, but did not specify which ones. Indonesia is home to two critically endangered rhino species, the Sumatran (Dicerorhinus sumatrensis) and Javanese (Rhinoceros sondaicus), each with an estimated total population of less than 100.

“This is a transnational crime,” Rasio Ridho Sani, director general of law enforcement at the Ministry of Environment, told reporters. “We continue to strengthen partnerships with international law enforcement agencies such as Interpol and UNODC (United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime).”

Rasio said the arrest followed a lengthy investigation by the ministry’s cyber patrol, which monitors the online illegal wildlife trade. He also called for the suspect to be given the maximum sentence as a way to deter future crimes. Under the revised Conservation Act, wildlife trafficking is punishable by up to 15 years in prison and 5 billion rupiah ($325,000) in fines.

Officials also said the undercover operation was part of a larger crackdown on illegal wildlife trafficking, focusing on networks in Sumatra and Java. That crackdown stemmed from the discovery this year of organized poaching of Javan rhinos in their only habitat, Ujung Kulon National Park, which may have killed as many as 26 of the animals, or a third of their total population, between 2019 and 2023.

“Rhinoceros poaching remains a threat (and) we are identifying the network in Java and Sumatra,” Rasio said. He did not say whether the horns seized in the August stabbing were linked to the poaching.

The Javan rhino poaching case came to light when police in Banten province, where Ujung Kulon is located, received a report on May 29, 2023, about the disappearance of camera traps from the national park. Footage captured by other camera traps in the park showed armed individuals in the park, apparently tracking rhinos. Police eventually identified residents of a nearby village, brothers Sunendi and Sahru, as the respective leaders of two poaching gangs operating in the park. Mongabay Indonesia’s investigation into the case also found evidence that the gang had obtained information about rhino movements from an insider in the park’s patrol team.

Sunendi was convicted and sentenced to a record 12 years in prison by a Banten district court in June after being found guilty of selling at least four horns. The Jakarta-based middleman who connected him to buyers, Yogi Purwadi, was convicted and sentenced to four and a half years in prison by the same court in July.

However, on August 27, the court acquitted Liem Hoo Kwan, also known as Willy, the buyer for whom Yogi acted as an intermediary. Despite evidence such as phone records and text messages linking Willy to the transactions, the chief judge of the three-judge panel overruled his colleagues and found Willy not guilty.

The Public Prosecution Service says it will appeal the decision.

Over the past decade, numerous reports have highlighted the mysterious disappearance of Javan rhinos that had previously been caught on camera traps. According to a source in the Mongabay Indonesia investigation, the killings began in 2018 with the discovery of the body of a male rhino on the southern coast of Ujung Kulon.

The source’s story is consistent with the findings of a 2023 report by Auriga Nusantara, a conservation NGO. The report noted that a total of 15 rhinos disappeared between 2019 and 2021, while three others were declared dead. Yet all were counted in the government’s official rhino population count during that period. It also highlighted questionable practices in the Indonesian government’s official census and an increase in reported poaching activity in Ujung Kulon.

According to investigative news agency Auriga, the number of missing rhinos is higher than the 11 mentioned in official data from the Ministry of Environment and Forestry. TempoBoth numbers are lower than the police estimate of 26 poached rhinos, which detectives arrived at based on the suspects’ testimonies.

The resurgence of rhino poaching and the potential loss of dozens of rhinos have raised concerns about the gap between official population estimates and the true numbers of these critically endangered animals. More importantly, recent evidence points to a declining Javan rhino population, contradicting government claims of stable growth.

The Ministry of Environment reported that Ujung Kulon’s rhino population grew from 51 to 80 between 2012 and 2022, attributing the increase to a high birth rate. However, Auriga has questioned these figures, pointing out that inconsistencies between monitoring data and camera trap footage suggest that official counts may be overlooking missing rhinos. In 2022, for example, footage from 132 camera traps identified only 41 individual rhinos, far below the ministry’s official count of 80 Javan rhinos that year.

Wildlife conservationist Dwi Nugro Adhiasto said the rhino horn trade was distinct from that of other protected species because the network was exclusive and prices were so high that the market was also scarce. He added that illegal poaching networks often used code words in their communications, such as ‘jacket’ for tiger skin or ‘cassava’ for elephant ivory.

“There needs to be specialized knowledge to solve cases of illegal wildlife trade,” he told Mongabay Indonesia. “Their network is small and closed.”

This story was reported by Mongabay’s Indonesia team and first published here and here on our Indonesian site on August 28 and 29, 2024.

Basten Gokkonsenior staff member for Indonesia at Mongabay, contributed to this report. Find him on 𝕏 @bgokkon.

See also:

Javan rhino poaching saga reveals serious security flaw

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