This is the communist dictator of China, Xi Jinping. After an official state visit to Tanzania in March of 2013, he loaded his presidential plane with elephant tusks. Indeed, he took such a quantity of tusks that he exhausted the local supply, causing its price to double.

This act of smuggling has been verified by the Environmental Investigative Agency, which had informants on the ground at the time of Xi’s visit. And, Dr. Jane Goodall, who has a home in Tanzania, personally confronted the president of Tanzania about this crime, for he was an accomplice to Xi Jinping’s brazen trafficking.

This is particularly tragic since half of the elephants in Tanzania have been killed in the last five years.

So, when we hear “good news” from China that Xi is cracking down on ivory trafficking, such as recent articles in the Washington Post, it might be wise to put it in perspective.

For more details of President Xi Jinping’s smuggling, see pages 7 and 8 of Executive Briefing: African Elephants on this website.