First, Tanzanian authorities arrested the “Queen of Ivory.” Now they’ve got their hands on “The Devil.”
For the second time in a month, the country’s National and Transnational Serious Crimes Investigation Unit Task Force has bagged a wanted elephant poacher, according to a source with knowledge of the investigation.
Boniface Matthew Mariango, also known as “Shetani” or “The Devil,” was taken into custody in the nation’s capital on Thursday.
“The 45-year-old Mariango was captured in a warehouse in Dar es Salaam after avoiding capture several times and is presently being interrogated before his first court hearing,” Andrea Crosta, the executive director of the Elephant Action League, said.
Mariango is believed to have created “several poaching syndicates” and to have worked with Yang Feng Glan, the “Queen of Ivory,” on multiple occasions, Crosta said.
Glan, 66, is thought to be the most notorious ivory trafficker arrested in East Africa in the last decade. She ran a sophisticated supply chain between East Africa and China for about 10 years, Tanzanian authorities said. Many of her suppliers were also arrested in early October.
Glan is thought to have come to Tanzania as a Swahili-Chinese translator in 1975, when China began to build a railway in the East African nation, according to the Elephant Action League. Tanzanian law enforcement said she began trafficking ivory as far back as 2006.