Rhino horn smuggler gets 17 months' jail, the harshest penalty in S'pore for such an offence

SINGAPORE — A 45-year-old man was jailed for 17 months on Wednesday (April 8) after he was caught smuggling 22kg of white rhinoceros horns worth an estimated US$563,000 (S$804,000) at Singapore’s Changi Airport without a permit.

In a statement issued after the sentence was handed down, the National Parks Board said the penalty was "the heaviest sentence meted out for the smuggling of wildlife parts in Singapore" to date.

The court heard that the horns had been removed from at least five adult white rhinoceros — a species that is threatened with extinction according to an international convention — the court heard.

Thurman Shiraazudin Aiden Matthews, a citizen of South Africa, was arrested on Jan 5 this year while he was in transit at Changi Airport Terminal 2; he was on his way from Johannesburg in South Africa to Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam.

The unemployed man then admitted that he was hired by a Chinese man who offered him the opportunity to earn “some easy money” transporting wildlife products such as rhino horns or lion bones to Vietnam in October 2019.

At the time, he was still on parole after his release from a prison in South Africa. National Parks Board prosecutor Wendy Tan said she was told by South African authorities that he had been jailed before for shoplifting, theft, burglary and housebreaking offences.

But as he was desperate for money, he agreed to be part of the illegal trade and was then introduced to two Chinese ladies who coordinated the transaction and passed him two suitcases containing 11 pieces of cut horn.

If he succeeded in delivering them to Vietnam, he was promised a payment of 20,000 South African rand (about S$2,000).

According to the organisation Save the Rhino, “rhino poaching has escalated in recent years and is being driven by the demand for rhino horn in Asian countries, particularly Vietnam”.

Rhino horns are used in traditional Chinese medicine, but are increasingly seen as a symbol of success and wealth, it added.

On Wednesday, Thurman pleaded guilty to one charge under the Endangered Species (Import and Export) Act.

WHAT HE DID

To familiarise himself with the route, Thurman had even travelled to Vietnam from Johannesburg transiting through Singapore thrice without carrying any illegal items.

But when he arrived at Changi Airport after putting the plan into action, at about 7.40am on Jan 5, a baggage screening officer attached to the Immigration and Checkpoints Authority facility noticed that the two suitcases contained several items shaped like horns.

Thurman was then identified as the owner of the suitcases and escorted to a room where he was instructed to open the suitcases, which were wrapped in plastic cling wrap and locked.

The 11 pieces of cut horn found were then taken to the Singapore Zoo for analysis, and the institution confirmed that they were from rhinoceroses.

NParks Centre for Animal and Veterinary Sciences also analysed the horns and its preliminary findings were that they were from the white rhino (Ceratotherium simum) species.

In asking the court to impose a jail sentence of less than 15 months on Wednesday, Thurman’s lawyer, Mr Sunil Sudheesan, told the court that his client is a “mere courier” who was in control of the suitcases for around half an hour or less.

In urging the court to not place too much weight on imposing a deterrent sentence — which the prosecutor had sought when arguing for a 20-month jail sentence — he added: “People at the lowest rung of these operations, frankly, don’t get deterred no matter what sentence we (impose) because they don’t know any better.”

District Judge Adam Nakhoda decided on a 17-month jail sentence as he considered the number of rhinoceroses harmed for the loot as the “most important factor” during sentencing.

The white rhinoceros is listed under Appendix I of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (Cites), which is an international convention. Species listed in Appendix I are “threatened with extinction”.

For committing the offence under the Endangered Species (Import and Export) Act, Thurman could have been jailed for up to two years, fined, or both.