On Dec. 5, Nigerian authorities seized more than 2 metric tons of pangolin scales in yet another effort to clamp down on the country’s booming transnational wildlife trade. Acting on intelligence provided by the Wildlife Justice Commission (WJC), an international NGO fighting organized wildlife crime, the Kano-Jigawa command of the Nigeria Customs Services (NCS) also arrested one person, suspected to be a broker. The seizures and the arrest were made in two warehouses in Mubi, a town in Adamawa state, where they were being stockpiled for export. The WJC estimates the 2,179 kilograms of scales likely originated from around 1,100 pangolins poached from across the continent. “This seizure is estimated to be worth tens of thousands of dollars on the black market in Nigeria, making this shipment highly valuable to traffickers,” Olivia Swaak-Goldman, executive director of the WJC, told Mongabay in an email. The scales were likely intended for Asian markets and linked to Lagos-based trafficking networks, she added. Since 2021, the WJC has partnered with the NCS to combat wildlife trafficking and dismantle criminal networks in Nigeria, which has recently become a transit hub for pangolin trafficking. “This partnership has primarily focused on pangolin scales and ivory, as they are the primary wildlife products being trafficked through Nigeria by organised criminal networks,” Swaak-Goldman said, adding they’re also looking at trafficking of shark fins and other marine species. The December seizure is the third WJC-NCS operation in 2024 involving pangolin scales, and the fourth in Nigeria this year. So far,…This article was originally published on Mongabay
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