Elephant poacher Boniface Matthew Mariango, known to most as Shetani "The Devil" was arrested Thursday in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. Mariango was the kingpin of a large elephant poaching network that included 15 criminal poaching and ivory smuggling syndicates, operating in Zambia, Burundi, Mozambique and Kenya, resulting in thousands of elephant deaths.
Tanzania's National and Transnational Serious Crimes Investigation Unit Task Force (NTSCIU) has been chasing Mariango for over a year.
"This arrest is yet another substantial breakthrough in Tanzania's anti-poaching and anti-trafficking efforts, with implications also reaching into neighboring countries," Andrea Crosta, co-founder of both Elephant Action League and WildLeaks, said in a statement, according to The Dodo. Crosta credited the NTSCIU as "real hope for elephants and for Tanzania."
"It was only in June that the true extent of elephant losses in Tanzania became apparent, but a few months later there are encouraging signs that the authorities are beginning to hit back at those responsible for orchestrating the elephant poaching disaster," said Richard Thomas, global communications coordinator for TRAFFIC, the wildlife trade-monitoring network, according to Take Part.
"After the arrest of the 'Ivory Queen', 'Shetani' became enemy number one. We have been hunting him since June of 2014. He has evaded arrest again and again, slipping away at least seven times, but this time we caught him, in a wild manhunt after informers reported his whereabouts in the outskirts of Dar," said a senior government official, according to the press release from the Elephant League.
"The evidence we have against 'Shetani' is crushing," the official continued. "He is the major supplier of weapons, ammunition and cars to poaching syndicates operating across the country and beyond."
"After these high profile arrests in Tanzania and the commitment to ban ivory by U.S. President Barack Obama and Chinese President Xi Jinping in their respective countries, I can finally say that there is hope for the elephants," concluded Crosta. "Let's keep fighting."
