{Al Jazeera Investigative Unit’s exclusive report raises serious questions about South African security chief.}<\/p>\n
Al Jazeera’s Investigative Unit has uncovered evidence of high-level political connections to rhino poaching in Africa. <\/p>\n
The investigation raises serious questions about the involvement of a South African government minister and members of a Chinese presidential delegation in the illegal rhino horn trade. <\/p>\n
Of the just 25,000 remaining African rhino, the biggest population is in South Africa’s Kruger National Park, where at least two rhino are killed for their horns by poachers every night. <\/p>\n
The selling of products from endangered species is banned worldwide, but high demand in China and Vietnam – where the horn is considered a sign of status and wealth – has kept the trade alive. <\/p>\n
Watch the film here: Al Jazeera Investigates – The Poachers Pipeline<\/p>\n
In Pretoria, South Africa, Al Jazeera secretly filmed a conversation with the manager of a Chinese restaurant who owns a collection of rhino horn bracelets and ivory chopsticks.<\/p>\n
The restaurant manager told Al Jazeera that when Chinese President Xi Jinping visited South Africa last December a delegation accompanying him asked to be taken shopping for illegal souvenirs to smuggle home.<\/p>\n
“They loved those ivory accessories,” he said. “Also rhino horn, but they didn’t buy much. They bought ivory mostly.”<\/p>\n
The illegal spending spree was confirmed by a second source. <\/p>\n
The Chinese government has pledged greater action on wildlife crime and did not respond to requests for an interview regarding our investigation.<\/p>\n
In South Africa, one rhino horn trafficker bragged to Al Jazeera about his close connections to Minister of State Security David Mahlobo, who runs the country’s intelligence services.<\/p>\n
“He came to my massage parlour every week or at least twice a month,” said the trafficker. “I know him very well.”<\/p>\n
Mahlobo has denied any relationship with the businessman. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
{Al Jazeera Investigative Unit’s exclusive report raises serious questions about South African security chief.} Al Jazeera’s Investigative Unit has uncovered evidence of high-level political connections to rhino poaching in Africa. The investigation raises serious questions about the involvement of a South African government minister and members of a Chinese presidential delegation in the illegal rhino […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[100],"byline":[2474],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-30290","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-africa","byline-al-jazeera"],"bylines":[{"id":2474,"name":"AL JAZEERA","slug":"al-jazeera","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":null}],"contributors":[{"id":2474,"name":"AL JAZEERA","slug":"al-jazeera","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":null}],"featured_image":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30290","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30290"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30290\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30290"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30290"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30290"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=30290"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=30290"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}