EDITORIAL - Collusion

Those replicas of elephant tusks left behind in place of the genuine articles looked almost real, and whoever made them must have been in the illegal ivory trade for a long time. The large pile of fake tusks discovered at the Ninoy Aquino Parks and Wildlife Nature Center, where tusks confiscated from smugglers were stored, indicated a sophisticated operation, and the government must make sure the culprits are caught.

This shouldn’t prove too hard. Who are the people tasked to secure the confiscated items at the nature center? Who might be interested in bringing in the tusks, and paying off people to obtain the tusks from government storage? Ivory tusks are used for jewelry and ornamental purposes and for certain types of Asian medicine. There aren’t too many possible ivory smugglers and buyers in this country. Whoever profited from ivory trafficking should not be allowed to enjoy the fruits of the crime.

It’s possible that the smugglers themselves retrieved the tusks and replaced them with the replicas, with the collusion of certain crooks in government. It wouldn’t be a novel scheme. Legitimate businessmen have complained that smugglers manage to retrieve their confiscated shipments in rigged auctions or by exploiting loopholes in auction rules.

Confiscated tusks are not the only items that disappear from government storage. Recently, expensive consumer items such as cameras that were seized by Customs authorities also disappeared from storage, according to reports. How rampant is this problem? In other government agencies, confiscated guns and prohibited drugs have been stolen.

The only way to stop this is to catch the culprits and punish them – not just the thieves, but also those who buy stolen items. The proliferation of fences is one of the biggest reasons for the rampant theft of vehicle parts, mobile phones and electric wires. Thieves steal even aluminum ladders because there are fences for such items. Unless anti-fencing laws are enforced, crimes against property will remain high.

Investigators are reportedly eyeing a public official in the theft of the elephant tusks. Investigators must not stop there; the buyer of the tusks must also be caught and sent to prison.