Indonesia holds rhino poachers and horn traffickers to account
The killing of Critically Endangered Javan rhinos in its last stronghold – the Ujung Kulon National Park in Indonesia – shook the world in 2023.
Most recently, on 12 February the Pandeglang District Court sent Sahru Karnadi to jail for 12 years for violating conservation and gun ownership laws.
He was identified as the head of one of two poaching gangs that had operated in the park, in a press release by the Directorate General of Natural Resources and Ecosystem Conservation Indonesia citing court proceedings on 9 October 2024.
Five others in his gang were given 11 years jail each – some of the longest jail terms for wildlife crime the country has seen. All six were also fined IDR100 million [approximately USD 6,132].
But the arrests and trials in this remarkable case began as far back as 2023 after the operations of criminal gangs that had been tracking and poaching Javan rhinos in the 120,000-hectare park at the southwestern tip of Java, first came to light.
The first major arrest took place in November 2023, when Sahru’s brother, Sunendi Karnadi, reportedly the mastermind of the poaching operations, was captured by authorities.
The group’s middleman and another Indonesian national accused of buying the rhino horns were nabbed a few months later in 2024.
Sunendi and the middleman Yogi Purwadi were both eventually convicted and given 12 years and four-and-a-half years in jail respectively. However, the alleged buyer, Liem Hoo Kwan Willy, was acquitted.
Amid investigations into the Ujung Kulon poaching, authorities began closer monitoring of online trade activity and nabbed a man attempting to sell rhino horns and other wildlife parts in Palembang, South Sumatra.
Four of eight horns found in his possession were from Indonesian rhinoceros. The country is home not only to the Javan rhino Rhinoceros sondaicus, but also the Sumatran rhinos Dicerorhinus sumatrensis. There remain an estimated 70 Javan rhinos and about 80 Sumatran rhinos in the wild.
Two men linked to this cyber trafficking case were subsequently found guilty of illegally trading in the eight rhino horns, were given four years jail and were fined.
Indonesian authorities labelled this trafficking case the country’s biggest in the past decade. The find came as a surprise given Indonesia has not been linked to international rhino horn trafficking to same extent as some other Southeast Asian countries.
The region has long been under the spotlight for international rhino horn trafficking.
From January 2021 to December 2023, TRAFFIC data shows at least 19 rhino horn trafficking incidences in five Southeast Asian countries. About 420kgs of rhino horns have been confiscated, including at least 84 whole horns. Viet Nam seized over half of this volume in 11 incidents.
In recent years, both Viet Nam and Singapore have convicted rhino horn smugglers while Malaysia’s first rhino horn trafficking trial is underway.
