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Japanese traders accused of illegal elephant ivory sales, with some passed off as mammoth tusks

Police in Japan have arrested Daigo Ivory’s former president and three others for alleged illegal activity related to elephant ivory sales.

Arrested in Tokyo on 2 June, the accused have admitted the allegations, according to media reports.

The individuals are accused of allegedly masking elephant ivory as mammoth ivory on an internet auction platform which banned elephant ivory sales.

Ivory seized from Daigo Ivory, via YouTube

They are charged with false sales under Japan’s Unfair Competition Prevention Act and for being in noncompliance with the Act on Conservation of Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (ACES). Specifically under ACES, Daigo apparently failed to use management cards for transactions to ensure traceability for these sales.

International commercial trade in ivory is banned under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Fauna and Flora (CITES), which also calls for the closure of domestic markets worldwide to prevent stimulating demand for ivory and leakages onto the black market.

Japan has the largest remaining legal ivory market, with nearly 6,000 Government-registered traders. However, many online retailers have banned the sale of ivory from their platforms to eliminate their role in illegal activity, including Yahoo! Japan, Rakuten and Mercari.

Daigo Ivory sells elephant ivory on its own website and also sells on other internet auction platforms, which are critical sales channels with broad customer reach and limited accountability. Yahoo! Japan Auctions ended the sale of elephant ivory in 2019, but Daigo Ivory was formerly a top seller.

Recent analysis by the Japan Tiger and Elephant Fund (JTEF) indicates Daigo Ivory was selling a large number of items suspected to be elephant ivory (identified as “ivory like” or mammoth) on Yahoo! Japan Auctions.

Ivory seized from Daigo Ivory, via YouTube

Tokyo police believe Daigo Ivory sold about 4,600 items suspected to be ivory through internet sites over a two-year period starting in 2022, generating total sales of approximately 200 million yen (~$1.3 million).

A registered dealer and part of the coalition guiding ivory trade policies in Japan, Daigo Ivory apparently mislabelled ivory to tap into the broader market, circumventing company policies.

According to media reports, the accused stated they wanted to avoid having their listings taken down – the false listing was apparently intentional. Revealingly, former Daigo Ivory president Nobumasa Daigo said: “I thought (illegal ivory sales/an ACES violation) were about as minor as littering a cigarette butt. I didn’t think the police would crack down on it.”

Daigo Ivory is a member of the Tokyo Ivory Arts and Crafts Association, part of the Japan Federation of Ivory Arts and Crafts Associations, which holds a leadership role in Japan’s Public-Private Council for the Promotion of Appropriate Ivory Trade Measures, established to ensure appropriate implementation of the ivory trade system in Japan.

Despite Daigo Ivory’s role in this compliance promotion body, the firm appears to have knowingly violated private company policies in order to sell elephant ivory online.

It is disappointing that, following this incident, the Japanese Government intends only to remind sellers of the rules, which is a woefully inadequate response to what appears to be intentional illegal activity. As a starting point, Daigo Ivory’s ivory business registration should be revoked immediately.

Elephant ivory is sometimes passed off as mammoth ivory to get around the law (c) James St John

Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department was able to seize some of Daigo’s ivory, but where did all the ivory from the sales, worth more than $1 million, go?

Ivory purchased from Daigo Ivory has previously been implicated in two court cases in China involving ivory illegally exported from Japan. It is therefore not unreasonable to expect that other ivory sold by the company may have also ended up in other countries, in contravention of Japanese and international law.

As EIA and JTEF have both documented, Japan’s legal ivory market provides a cover for illegal activity and an easy source of ivory that can be illegally exported – especially when purchased online.

Japanese law enforcement officers have a challenging job, having to distinguish between legal elephant ivory, illegal elephant ivory sales and mammoth ivory. Closing the market for elephant ivory would simplify enforcement, detection, investigation and prosecution.

Under CITES, countries are urged to close their domestic ivory markets if they are contributing to poaching or illegal trade – clearly, Japan’s market is doing just that.

Any legal sales of ivory serve to stimulate the market and provide a means to launder illicit ivory. Japan is currently undergoing a review of its law governing ivory trade, the ACES.

EIA continues to urge the Japanese Government to make revisions which close the domestic ivory market to reduce demand, simplify enforcement efforts domestically and eliminate a legal supply of ivory for illegal export.