Mugwira is also alleged to have used his official CIO vehicle to ferry weapons and smuggle rhino horn. Meanwhile, he has been linked to Dumisani Moyo, one of the country’s most notorious poaching ringleaders and a man accused of being the “principal sponsor” of poaching in Zimbabwe and Botswana.
Believed to be on the run in Zambia, Moyo has been linked to elephant poaching, ivory smuggling and “dozens of rhino killings” over the past decade. Interpol has issued an international “red notice” calling for his arrest.
Mugwira is now facing trial, and Zimbabwe does have stringent legislation to protect its wild fauna and flora. But the application of these laws has typically been uneven and police, prosecutors and magistrates are easily bribed.
In December 2015, for example, Tawenga Machona – one of Mugwira’s co-accused and a man described as a “hardcore” poacher with “decades of poaching activity” – was found guilty in a separate trial of killing two rhino and sentenced to 35 years in prison.
However, the court suspended 15 years of the sentence on the condition he pays $480 000 – the value of the rhinos – to the conservancy.
The extent of the allegations against Mugwira may be particularly wide-ranging, but the involvement of the CIO in poaching appears to extend beyond a smattering of rogue agents. According to conservationists, there is evidence that corrupt game scouts and poachers have regularly sold horns and tusks to CIO operatives.
“The CIO told them what price they were willing to pay and warned them that if they didn’t accept it and tried to sell the horns elsewhere, they would be arrested,” said one conservationist on condition of anonymity.
“When poachers started reading about rhino horn being worth its weight in gold, they got pissed off about that and it had the perversely beneficial effect of causing disputes in the ranks. Some simply gave up, not prepared to be screwed over by CIO and government officials. Others tried to get their horns out via South Africa and Zambia.”
Over the past decade, over 6 000 rhinos have been killed by poachers across several African range states – and things are getting worse. In the early stages of the crisis in 2008, 262 rhinos were killed. By 2015, that number had risen more than fivefold to 1 342.
South Africa, which is home to 79% of the continent’s remaining rhinos, has borne the brunt of this killing, but Zimbabwe has also experienced a worrying rise in poaching. In 2014, 20 rhinos were killed; in 2015, the figure was 51.
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