A Tanzanian court on Thursday will deliver its verdict in the case of four Chinese nationals charged with smuggling 11 rhinoceros horns worth 900 million Tanzanian shillings ($418,500), media reported.
Song Lei, 33, Xiao Shaodan, 29, Chen Jianlin, 34, and Hu Liang, 30, each face three separate charges, including "economic sabotage," Tanzania-based newspaper The Citizen reported Monday.
According to the report, the four Chinese nationals were arrested on November 6 while en route from Malawi to Tanzania. The hidden rhino horns were found in a fake fuel tank welded to their car.
The court in the southern Tanzanian town of Mbeya, where the Chinese nationals were reportedly arraigned earlier, could not be reached for comment by the Global Times as of press time.
An official at the Embassy of China in Tanzania said that he was aware of the arrest, but did not offer further details.
"The Chinese government is unequivocal in its position against wildlife smuggling. We support the Tanzanian authorities' efforts to tackle smuggling in accordance with legal provisions," the official told the Global Times.
Tanzania has taken measures to protect its remaining rhinos from unscrupulous poachers since the 1990s, according to a paper published by Robert D Fyumagwa of the Tanzania Wildlife Research Institute in 2010.
The country's new president, John Magufuli, has cracked down on poaching, Reuters reported in November.
Zhang Xiaohai, executive secretary-general of Ta Foundation, a Chinese animal protection NGO, told the Global Times on Thursday that those poachers cannot represent all Chinese people, as public awareness of the fight against wildlife smuggling has been rising in recent years.
However, China's laws on the protection of wildlife focus more on proper utilization of animal resources, rather than on protecting animals, Zhang said.
On September 25, Chinese President Xi Jinping and his US counterpart Barack Obama agreed to halt commercial ivory sales in the US and China, a move analysts say is a historical accord in the fight against animal smuggling.
Poaching for illegal trade in rhino horns is the biggest threat to the endangered species, as powdered rhino horn is used in traditional Asian medicine, according to World Wide Fund for Nature.
