mysterious theories

Ongoing investigations

This page is dedicated to theories about corruption, illicit trade and other crimes.
We want to highlight that the statements below has not been confirmed by a legitimate authority and
are still under investigation by the UN.

President of Zimbabwe, Robert Mugabe, sold ivory to China in exchange for jet fighters, tanks and other military hardware.

China has invested more in Zimbabwe than any other nation with 35 companies which spended over $600 million dollar in 2013.

In June or July 2006 the Zimbabwean government secretly bought Chinese rifles, bullets, anti-riot gear and other military equipment in return for 30 tons of ivory, violating CITES.
CITES are currently investigating the sale.

In 2005 the Zimbabwean government bought six military aircraft from China and another six aircraft from three Chinese firms on 23 August 2006.

Two days later the Zimbabwe National Army said it bought 127 trucks for $1.2 million.

The Chinese government donated farm machinery worth $25 million to Zimbabwe on 21 April, including 424 tractors and 50 trucks, as part of a $58 million loan to the Zimbabwean government.

The Mugabe administration previously seized white-owned farms and gave them to blacks, damaging machinery in the process. The ZCTF gathered information and studied records of 62 game ranches. 59 reported losses including the killing of 75 rare black rhinoceroses, 39 leopards, 9500 impalas, 5000 kudus, and 2000 wildebeest.

The bankrupt Zimbabwean regime of Robert Mugabe has illegally sold more than eight tons of ivory to China, sources in Harare revealed in 2000.

The aircraft used to fly the ivory to Beijing,China, in May 2006 was said to be an Angolan-owned Ilyushin, routed via Libya. Mugabe had close ties with the late Colonel Muammar Gadaffi, the Libyan leader.

The ivory cargo is thought to have been part payment for thousands of Kalashnikov rifles that were flown into the Zimbabwean capital at the same time. Worth almost US$1m, the sale is a serious breach of rules covering the ivory trade, and is being investigated by Interpol and the CITES.

Chinese officials allegedly smuggled ivory out of Tanzania on president Xi Jinping’s plane.

Through speaking to those involved directly in this illegal trade during a series of field trips to Africa and China in 2014, 2010 and 2006, EIA was able to compile testimonies of Tanzanian ivory traders that they have supplied ivory to Chinese officials.

The illegal ivory was then said to be taken out in diplomatic bags – one trader was caught on camera saying he had personally loaded ivory onto a plane carrying Chinese state officials.

The EIA report cited a trader in Tanzania's main port city, Dar es Salaam, named as Suleiman Mochiwa, who met undercover investigators.

He said that when the Chinese government and business delegation arrived, ivory prices in the local market doubled to $700 (£438) per kilo during the visit.

"The [delegation]... used the opportunity to procure such a large amount of ivory that local prices increased," the report says.

Investigators alleged that the Chinese buyers could take advantage of a lack of security checks for those in the country on a diplomatic visit.

"The two traders claimed that a fortnight before the state visit, Chinese buyers began purchasing thousands of kilos of ivory, later sent to China in diplomatic bags on the presidential plane," the report added.

"When your president Xi Jinping was here… many kilos go out… many kilos. Half of his plane go with that," one of the traders told the EIA investigators.

The trip was Xi Jinping's first foreign tour as head of state. Traders told the group that similar ivory sales took place on an earlier trip by China's former President Hu Jintao.

Illegal ivory trade funds al-Shabaab's terrorist attacks.

Al-Shabaab, the Somali Islamist group that killed dozens of people in 2013 in a bloody four-day siege of the Westgate shopping mall in Nairobi, is deriving funds for its terror campaigns from elephant poaching in Kenya and elsewhere, activists and conservationists claim.

Hillary Clinton warned that money from the ivory trade could have helped the al-Shabaab to fund the attack on the Westgate shopping mall in Kenya in 2013, a theory which is backed by elephant conservation groups.

The Elephant Action League (EAL) said that elephant poaching and the trafficking of ivory is fuelling conflict in Africa by helping groups such as al-Shabaab to mount ever more deadly attacks.

A source within the militant group said that up to 3 tonnes of ivory were shipped through Somalian ports every month. With ivory selling at $200 per kilogram, al-Shabaab could be turning over $365,000 a month.

Mr Andrea Crosta, a director of EAL, said he had built up a network of undercover spies and informants inside al-Shabaab, some of whom were still actively reporting back about the organisation’s lucrative ivory deals.

“We know that there is one man, of Somali origin, who is trusted in the ranks of al-Shabaab,” he said. “Whenever someone is looking to buy ivory through al-Shabaab, they contact this guy and ask for a specific amount.”

According to Mr Crosta, however, al-Shabaab’s ivory operation is very sophisticated.

The money usually changes hands in the no-man’s land between Kenya and Somalia. Al-Shabaab has small boats in ports such as Merka and Barawe, that transport the ivory shipments.

Mr Costa said the ivory boats do not just come from China, where demand for ivory is known to be high. They also come from “South Korea, Iran, Turkey, and of course the Gulf, Dubai”.

Al-Shabaab’s emissaries even bring their own scales to weigh the ivory accurately.