哥大毕业,却去非洲当卧底,29岁的他只想改变全世界对的偏见(附视频)

什么样的人在非洲参与象牙贸易？他们怎样做象牙走私？黄泓翔在莫桑比克做实地调查，详细描述现场真相。

今年10月30日，厦门海关查获了多达12吨的象牙，是历史上最大象牙走私案，价值6亿元。无独有偶，11月3日，坦桑尼亚一位人家中查出1.8吨藏匿象牙，引起非洲媒体轩然大波。，市场要对全球70%的象牙贸易负责。

纪念品级别

小董在一家通信公司工作，这个周六，被派到莫桑比克出差的他，来到了这个每周开放一次的“六月二十五日广场集市”，并为他将要结婚的国内亲戚用手机拍了一段祝贺视频。在随后的采购中，他买了几串象牙做的手镯。“你们看，我现在位处的是莫桑比克首都马普托最大的象牙市场。我会给你们带些好东西回去的！”

这个市场出售的手工艺品非常多样：非洲布画、木雕、果壳抽屉、小矿石做的首饰。然而，对客人而言，这个市场仅仅作为“象牙市场”而闻名。

 “你要什么？‘象牙’？‘黑木’？我们有，‘不贵’！”当地的贩子看到人经过时都会格外热情，用说得非常标准的几个中文词汇吸引这些贵客。他们的摊子边总是放着一个大纸箱，里面放着满满的象牙制品——一般来说，他们只愿意对客人出示。几乎所有的象牙制品都是人在买，而白人游客毫无兴趣。除了象牙，人还喜欢买黑木制品——那是一种需要漫长生长时间的珍贵硬木。多年以前，这个市场的象牙制品被公开售卖，然而今天，随着非洲抵制象牙的声音日益高涨，这种贸易进入了隐秘状态。

老李是一家石油公司的驻马普托员工，已经在马普托呆了两年。在市场上，他向新来的同事传授把象牙球手链带回国的技巧：“我们把绳切了，把珠子零散藏行李里带回去，能带回多少算多少，再拼起来又是手链。”

 “你一次不要带超过一两公斤就好。出莫桑比克没有问题的，在国内海关如果被查到，给他们就是了，反正这里很便宜。”老陈是一家建筑公司的驻马普托员工，已经在这里呆了一年。他每周都要逛象牙市场，并且挑选最上等的象牙。他向笔者展示了他的收藏品：手链，筷子，印章。

这就是人在非洲参与象牙贸易的最广泛类型：纪念品级别。无论是企业的外派员工，还是来开小店的沿海移民，很多人在回国时夹带少量的象牙制品。象牙制品在这里非常便宜，一对手镯折合人民币四五百元，在黑市，价格可高达一万。在亚洲，一公斤象牙价格高达3000美元，而在莫桑比克，贫穷的当地猎手仅以每公斤300元人民币左右出售。几经转手到了首都市场，价格也不会太高。

大量的散客购买，不仅因为有高达百倍的利润，而且风险非常低。“理论上，合法渠道的象牙手工品是可以当地销售的，只是不能出境。”莫桑比克北部麒麟巴国家公园的负责人包戴尔说。

莫桑比克在象牙方面的立法薄弱，严重的令执法更加混乱。按照法律，每种动物在莫桑比克都有一个对应的赔偿价格，比方说，一头大象是一亿两千万当地币，折合美元四百万。被捕的盗猎者会被允许去筹集罚款并且赔偿，只有当他无法赔偿时，才会面临可能的牢狱之灾。而实际上，大量的盗猎者不会被捕，即便被捕也能通过各种漏洞逃走。而一些象牙制品可以当地出售却不能出境的规定，也在面前犹如笑话。

 “给海关工作人员两千当地币（合人民币四百），他们就不查你的行李。”老朱是马普托机场的工作人员，参与了这座新机场的修建。他说，莫桑比克的机场海关只要愿意花钱打点，完全不用担心。

集装箱级别

 “纪念品级别”是不容小觑的，尽管单人量少，但大量涌入非洲的人足够形成庞大的市场。然而，比起这些散客，人还以更高级的形式参与走私。

莫桑比克的北部是大象盗猎的主要发生地，这里的主要港口城市叫彭巴。在彭巴，今天存在着大量商人，他们大多数从事木材行业，即将当地木材用集装箱运回。根据国际环境调查机构EIA2011年的调查，大量的木材公司有非法走私现象。那些木材公司并不自己砍伐，而是向当地人廉价收购木材——不管来源是否合法——并运回国内销售。，他们的木材进出口生意处于灰色地带，并且有时会夹带其他灰色生意。

2011年，在彭巴港，一家名为天和（音译）的公司的木材集装箱，被查出夹带126根象牙原牙、一根犀牛角，和一些穿山甲鳞片。，并已在今年8月被关闭。

德瓦是MITI公司的负责人之一，他不断地对媒体声明，MITI并没有参与人的象牙生意。他表示对曾经的伙伴很生气：“虽然没抓到证据，但是我知道，那么做（在木材中夹带象牙等违禁物）的不只是那一家公司。人总是这样！”

彭巴的个体公司大多运作于灰色地带，并且非常熟悉如何与的政府打交道。

当笔者来到彭巴一家木材公司暗访时，见一男一女两名穿制服的莫桑比克人坐在他们办公室看电视，里面放着电视剧。

 “他们一个是海关的，一个是警察局的，理论上装箱时他们应该来看着。他们确实来‘看’，就是来收钱和看电视。”该公司一个小伙子笑着说。

“天和之所以被抓，是因为没有花钱打点周全。想省小钱，花了大钱。”另一家彭巴主要木材公司的管理者老周说。他声称他们公司是当地公司里唯一完全合法的，然而，笔者通过在线搜索，发现该公司也多次被抓获走私木材，被当地媒体称为“屡教不改者”。

参与走私的更高一层，是极少数权贵。在肯尼亚，一家公司的负责人对我说：“很多象牙是通过‘外交渠道’回去的，而不是通过我们这样的普通人。”

所谓外交渠道，指的是个别的政府官员，利用乘坐的外交专机不用经过海关的便利，向国内走私象牙。这种渠道涉及人员较为高级，因而鲜有被抓获的实际例子。

2013年6月，，两名前往的外交官与军官，在赞比亚涉嫌携带价值14万美元的27公斤象牙时被捕。报道并没有提到这些走私者的细节。

，：“绝大多数公民遵守莫法律，但也不排除个别人从事非法交易象牙的可能性，使馆将继续做好对本国公民的宣传教育。”

与受害者

在非洲，部分人从体制漏洞里寻求利益，但另一方面，这并不意味着人不具备是非观念。

 “非洲人真是想钱想疯了。”一名驻彭巴的员工在微信朋友圈里上传了一只穿山甲的照片，并配上这句评论。那是当地人抓来卖给人吃的。据我了解，在彭巴的人大多数至少吃了一次穿山甲或其他野生动物，因为很便宜。然而，人并非不了解这是保护动物，甚至有时会因为这些行为而鄙视当地人。

 “非洲当地人只要给他钱，什么都干得出来。他们没有尊严，没有社会责任感。”一名在彭巴的木材公司老板老周说。像许多其他人一样，他也向我诉说他在非洲的遭遇，比如官员和警察如何索贿，政府机关办事如何效率低下，还有频繁的抢劫等犯罪。在大多数人眼里，自己都是“黑暗非洲”的受害者，尽管他们已经学会了如何在这种法则中利益最大化。

 “木材现在越砍越少了，终究是不可持续的。我们准备转行做农业。”老周说。

老周和莫桑比克政府官员打过很多交道，。据他介绍，接下来的总统大选中，一个候选人很，另一个候选人很清廉正义。

 “如果那个清廉的赢了，那么国家会越来越好，但是木头生意这种就不好做了。此外，。我们必须根据接下来的大环境来决定我们的战略。”老周说。

Who are the Chinese smuggling ivory out of Africa and how are they doing it? Huang Hongxiang went to Mozambique to investigate

Dong has been sent to Mozambique by his employer, a Chinese communications company. At a busy weekly market he used his phone to record a message of congratulations for a relative back home who is getting married before buying several ivory bracelets: “Look, this is the biggest ivory market in Maputo, I’ll find some good stuff to bring you.”

The traders sell a range of crafts – paintings, carvings, cabinets, stone jewellery. But for Chinese shoppers, it’s just “the ivory market”.

“What are you looking for? Ivory? Ebony? We’ve got it, cheap!” The sellers are particularly happy to see Chinese customers, and have learned the Chinese words needed to attract them. Cardboard boxes by their stalls are full of ivory products, only to be shown to Chinese shoppers. Ebony, a precious and slow-growing hardwood, is another popular choice with the Chinese.

Li, an employee of a Chinese oil company, has lived here for two years. He explains to newly-arrived colleagues how to get ivory bead bracelets back home. “Cut the string and hide the beads in your luggage, then restring it when you get back – it’s still the same bracelet.”

Chen, a construction company employee, has more advice: “Just don’t take more than a kilogram or two at once. You won’t have any trouble leaving here, and if it’s found at customs in China you just have to hand it over – it’s cheap to buy here anyway.” He’s been working here for a year and visits the market every week, choosing the best products. He showed me his collection – bracelets, chopsticks, stamps.

The growth in the illegal trade in ivory and the involvement of Chinese citizens is a cause of major concern both internationally and in China. In late October, customs officers in Xiamen, a city in south east China, seized a 12 tonne shipment of ivory worth 600 million yuan – the biggest ivory bust in Chinese history. Days later, 1.8 tonnes of ivory were found in the Tanzanian home of a Chinese man.

The most common way in which Chinese get involved in the ivory trade in Africa is as souvenir hunters, such as Dong, Li and Chen. Employees sent here by their companies, migrants running small shops – many of them take small quantities of ivory on trips home. Ivory is cheap here – a bracelet might cost the equivalent of four or five hundred yuan, but sell for up to 10,000 yuan on the black market in China. In Asia, a kilogram of ivory could cost up to US$3,000, but hunters in impoverished areas of Africa will sell it for about 300 yuan, and it still won’t be too expensive by the time it’s reached Beijing.

It’s not just the huge profits that attract customers – they also know the risks are low. “In theory legitimate ivory products can be sold locally, they just can’t be exported,” saidBaodai, an official at Quirimbas National Park in the north of the country.  

Mozambique’s laws on ivory are weak, and the situation is worsened by rampant corruption. Legally each type of animal has a value – for example, an elephant is worth about US$4 million. Poachers who are caught have to pay that value in compensation, but are freed in order to get the money and are only jailed if they can’t pay. And in reality poachers are rarely caught and those that are slip through the net. Meanwhile, corruption makes a mockery of the rules on sale and export of ivory.

Zhu works at the airport: “Give the customs people 2,000 metical (400 yuan) and they won’t check your luggage.” As long as you’re happy to spend a little on bribes at the airport, he said, there’s no need to worry.

The souvenir hunters might only smuggle a little each, but the huge numbers of Chinese people travelling to Africa make for a huge market. In addition, there is another another class of smugglers altogether.

The north of Mozambique is a major centre for elephant poaching. The region’s main port, Pemba, is home to many Chinese businessmen, mostly in the timber trade – shipping containers of local wood back home to China. According to an Environmental Investigation Agency study in 2011, many of the Chinese timber firms are involved in smuggling – they do not fell timber themselves, but buy it cheaply from locals, asking no questions about whether or not it has been cut legally, then ship it back home for sale. They exist in a grey zone, taking advantages of regulatory and customs loopholes – and often they are involved in other shady businesses. 

In 2011, 126 tusks were found in a container of timber belonging to a Chinese company, Tianhe, along with one rhino horn and some pangolin scales. The firm was ordered to pay its local partner MITI US$3.5m, and was closed in August this year.

Dewa, a MITI official, insisted in the local media that his company had nothing to do with their Chinese partner’s ivory smuggling. He expressed anger: “We might not have any evidence, but we know it’s not just the one company doing this. 

The Chinese are all at it!” Most of the port’s Chinese traders exist in a grey area and know only too well how to work within a corrupt government.

When I paid an undercover visit to one local Chinese timber firm I saw two uniformed Mozambicans watching Chinese soap operas on the office television.

“One is a customs officer, the other’s with the police. In theory they’re here to inspect the containers as we load them, but they just come for the bribes and to watch television,” explained a company employee, smiling.

“Tianhe got caught as they failed to pay enough bribes – that was a false economy,” said Zhou, manager of another large Chinese timber firm. He claimed his company is the only clean Chinese firm locally, but checking online found it was involved in multiple cases of timber smuggling. The local media referred to the firm as a repeat offender. Higher up the food chain there is a small number of more powerful smugglers. In Kenya an official with a Chinese firm told me that “a lot of ivory is moved via ‘diplomatic channels’, not by us ordinary folk."

He was referring to particular corrupt government officials who take advantage of their diplomatic flights to avoid customs and smuggle ivory. These are all high-ranking figures, and so it is rare for there to be any arrests.

In June 2013, Xinhua’s English edition reported that a Chinese diplomat and a Chinese military officer had been detained in Zambia on suspicion of smuggling 27 kilograms of ivory worth US$140,000. But there were no details on who these people actually were.

When I asked the Chinese embassy in Mozambique about this, the response was that “the vast majority of Chinese citizens obey Mozambique’s laws, but it is not impossible that certain individuals trade in illegal ivory. The embassy will continue its education efforts.”