2 Charged in Smuggling of Elephant Ivory

A federal grand jury indicted two Los Angeles residents Wednesday for what authorities said was the largest-ever seizure of African elephant ivory on the West Coast.

Bahoreh Kabba, 38, and Ebrima Marigo, 36, were arrested shortly after U.S. Customs agents found 480 pieces--weighing about 260 pounds--of ivory hidden inside air cargo shipments that arrived at Los Angeles International Airport on April 9 and 11.

The two men were taken into custody when they attempted to pick up the cargo shipments, said Craig Ziegler, resident agent in charge of the U.S. Customs Service’s LAX investigations office.

“This is not the kind of thing we see out here at LAX every day,” Ziegler said.

The seizure of ivory has been extremely rare since it became illegal to smuggle elephant tusks into the United States in 1990. Two years before the international ban, federal authorities seized a half-ton of ivory, and the importers were cited for failing to have the proper permits.

The current case, Ziegler said, “was just a stone-cold smuggling case.” The indictments of Kabba and Marigo were returned by a federal grand jury late Wednesday.

The first shipment of ivory was found by customs inspectors during a routine examination of a shipment of chairs and wooden statues coming from Nigeria, Ziegler said. When inspectors X-rayed the items, they found 220 pounds of raw and carved African ivory hidden inside, including dozens of ivory rings, beads and 38 whole--but small--tusks, he said.

Another 40 pounds of ivory and ivory products were subsequently seized at a Hollywood residence. In all, the ivory has an estimated value of $375,000--and potentially much more when carved or made into jewelry.

Kabba and Marigo, authorities said, are believed to have run an import-export business out of an undisclosed Hollywood location, where they distributed African artifacts and handicrafts.

Kabba, a Gambian native, was charged with two counts of smuggling products from an endangered species. Marigo, formerly of Liberia, was charged with one count of the same statute. Each count brings a maximum prison term of five years, said Assistant U.S. Atty. William Carter, who is prosecuting the case.

Decades of poaching decimated herds of African elephants, and prompted laws that make it illegal to kill them except under certain controlled situations.

In 1990, the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species established its ban on ivory sales, which made it a federal crime to import ivory into the United States without the required permits.

There are “very, very limited exceptions” to the ban, said Carter, including scientific and educational purposes, “and if you shot and killed your own elephant, you can get certain exemptions.”

Both Carter and Ziegler said the investigation is ongoing, and that others remain suspects, including one man who was arrested and later released. They said it was unclear whether the two were acting on their own or are part of a larger smuggling ring.