Five alleged traffickers arrested in flagrante delicto of possession, circulation and illegal marketing of three large elephant tusks on October 13, 2020 in Attiégou, a peripheral district of Lomé, were referred to the civil prison of Lomé on 16 October 2020. The arrest was made possible thanks to agents of the Central Office for the Suppression of Illicit Drug Trafficking and Money Laundering (OCRTIDB) and the Ministry of Environment and Forest Resources (MERF) in collaboration with EAGLE-Togo.

These alleged traffickers who were arrested when they were preparing to sell the large tusks of elephants, a species fully protected by national laws and the CITES Convention, are involved in a highly organized international criminal network. They smuggled elephant tusks across the borders of the sub-region, including Benin, where the elephant tusks originated.

Once arrested, the names BOUYO Essozimna, DAGLO Kossi (great fetishist), GAGNON Kodjo, ASSIH Manèyassouwé and ZODOGADJI Grégoire are first taken into custody at  the OCRTIDB, before being brought to the civil prison of Lomé after having acknowledged the facts of which they are accused of. s before the prosecutor. They face a prison sentence ranging from one to five years and a fine of one (01) million to fifty (50) million CFA francs.

The alleged traffickers, four of whom are Togolese nationals and ZODOGADJI Beninese nationals, were caught by OCRTIDB elements in the middle of negotiating the sale of three elephant tusks that they meticulously packed in a loincloth before concealing them in two bags. real. After the seizure of the elephant tusks, a search of the home of Mr. DAGLO where the tusks were hidden, did not allow to have any other object or ivory tip. In their first statements, the alleged traffickers acknowledged the facts of which they were accused.

However, the new penal code in its environmental aspect strengthens the protection of fauna and flora. Article 761 of this code provides: "The destruction and marketing, direct or indirect, without right of animal or plant species protected under the laws and regulations in force and the international conventions to which the Republic of Togo is a party shall be punishable by a penalty of one to five years d 'imprisonment and a fine of one million to fifty million without prejudice to any other provision of this Code'.

And, article  796 of the same code states: "Anyone who circulates, sells, imports, exports or transits wild animals, alive, trophies without authorization is punishable by a prison sentence of one to six months and a fine of one hundred thousand to five hundred thousand CFA francs or one of these two penalties"

This arrest concerning ivory trafficking carried out by the OCRTIDB follows the arrest operation of July 27 in Kara where 4 traffickers had been apprehended in possession of 6 elephant tusks. The observation is clear, the ivory trade is not weakening. Yet the international ivory trade has been declared illegal since 1989, but African elephant populations continue to decline. Every year, 20,000 to 30,000 elephants are killed for their ivories, according to the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF); equivalent between 50 to 80 per day. (EAGLE-Togo)