Abstract
This article focuses on the trafficking segment of the illegal wildlife market, or more specifically on organised trafficking in rhino horns from South Africa to Vietnam via the Czech Republic. Composed as a criminological case study, the article analyses how the wildlife trafficking networks were established by Vietnamese nationals in cooperation with providers in Africa and Central Europe, how they operate by crossing national borders and ethnic barriers, and how the illegal wildlife trade is incorporated into the Vietnamese criminal activities in Central Europe. Two important cases of rhino “pseudo-hunting” that were investigated by the Czech security forces, Operation Rhino and Operation Osseus, are discussed in this context.
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Notes
Personal communications and unpublished documents connected to the institutions are mentioned as CEI, NCA, PCR and GDC in the text.
For security reasons, respondents from the Vietnamese community are quoted as “Vietnamese community sources” (VCS), and the Czech respondents are quoted as “Czech confidential sources” (CCS) in the text.
Microchipping is required in cases of legal rhino horn exports from the RSA (DEA 2012).
According to the CEI’s (2016) unofficial information, out of approximately 50 hunters in Poland and 35 in Hungary who were inspected by 2019, none of them owned their rhino horn trophy.
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Acknowledgements
This study is based mainly on the results of the research project Migration from the Near East, Sub-Saharan Africa and Asia: the Geopolitical and Security Context, Implications and Recommendations (TAČR ÉTA TL01000432), which was supported by the Technological Agency of the Czech Republic.
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Nožina, M. The Czech Rhino Connection: a Case Study of Vietnamese Wildlife Trafficking Networks’ Operations Across Central Europe. Eur J Crim Policy Res 27, 265–283 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10610-020-09453-4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10610-020-09453-4