Guinea National Sentenced for Trafficking Rhinoceros Horn, Elephant Ivory
Amara Cherif, a citizen of Guinea, was sentenced to 57 months in prison for conspiring to traffic millions of dollars' worth of rhinoceros horns and elephant ivory, the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York said Dec. 14. Two of Cherif's co-conspirators were previously sentenced to 63 months and 54 months. The defendant's trafficking involved the poaching of more than 35 rhinoceros and over 100 elephants.
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Cherif and the two co-conspirators, Moazu Kromah of Liberia and Mansur Mohamed Surur of Kenya, belonged to a Uganda-based criminal enterprise engaged in the trafficking and smuggling practice, which "violates several U.S. laws, as well as international treaties implemented by certain U.S. laws," the U.S. Attorney's Office said. From 2012 through 2019, the trio conspired to ship and sell around 190 kilograms of rhinoceros horns and around 10 tons of elephant ivory from East African countries to the U.S. and Southeast Asia, the U.S. Attorney's Office said. The goods were valued at around $7.4 million.
The defendants typically shipped the rhinoceros horns and elephant ivory in packages that also held pieces of African art. But in 2018, U.S. law enforcement intercepted multiple packages containing rhinoceros horn meant for a buyer in Manhattan. Cherif was arrested in Senegal in 2019 and extradited to the U.S. in 2020, where he pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit wildlife trafficking and two counts of wildlife trafficking.