con la collaborazione di Elisabetta Scuri

In the documentary Caccia all'avorio, the person we are about to tell you about appears at the moment when the tusks of elephants brutally killed on the African continent arrive at the world's most important hub for the black market: Hong Kong's Chinese market. Here, a large share of the illegal ivory that is the fruit of poaching crime docks aboard ships, hidden in containers, before being sorted and "parked" in the back rooms of souvenir shops and luxury goods stores, waiting to be sold to more or less unwitting tourists and serial traffickers.

Read also: Bracconaggio e caccia grossa, ne parliamo con chi ha messo l'intelligence al servizio della natura

Unless Italian Andrea Crosta, co-founder of the organisation Elephant Action League (EAL), together with his team of experts from the world of intelligence, can anticipate and report the subsequent moves to the competent authorities. This scene from Caccia all'avorio is crucial, just as the work Crosta carries out day after day is crucial. The documentary (whose original title is The Ivory Game) is available on Netflix, born from a collaboration between Terra Mater — Europe's most important documentary production company — the Vulcan foundation of Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, and Leonardo DiCaprio's film production company, Appian Way.

Can you tell us how the Elephant Action League came about?
In 2012 I was in Kenya for work, and during an excursion in a park with the rangers we were working with, I came across a scene of elephant poaching. Right there, like a bolt of lightning on the road to Damascus, I realised I was not happy with what I was doing. I was earning a lot of money in the intelligence field, but I was dissatisfied. So I decided to leave everything behind and found an NGO in this field. I saw in the rangers' faces an absolute inability to defend the elephants and cope with this global crisis. I thought of bringing these two worlds together — that of conservation and that of security, intelligence, and technological investigation. That is how the Elephant Action League was born: the first intelligence agency at the service of the planet. Its objective is to combat environmental crime, which generates a turnover of over 250 billion dollars a year.

Andrea Crosta is co-founder of the Elephant Action League, an organisation that has put intelligence work at the service of the Planet © Eal

150,000 elephants have been killed in the last five years © Eal

Pangolin scales are extremely sought after owing to their use in traditional Chinese medicine and in restaurants. This animal faces extinction, yet receives less media attention than other species © Eal

Ivory statuettes for sale in Hong Kong. The region is a major hub for illegal ivory trafficking in Asia © Eal

Legal hunting reserves exist in Africa. Last year someone paid one million dollars just to kill a rhinoceros in Namibia © Eal

Elephant Action League fights to protect rhinos too

Andrea Crosta is co-founder of the Elephant action league and he uses his intelligence network to prevent poaching and save endangered animals © EAL

Rhinos are killed for their horn, which is used in traditional Chinese medicine and can be worth more than 65,000 dollars per kilo © EAL

Trafficante di corno di rinoceronte, Vietnam

Ivory statuettes for sale in Hong Kong. The region is a major hub for illegal ivory trafficking in Asia © Eal

Per contrastare i crimini contro l'ambiente bisogna colpire i trafficanti, non i bracconieri

Nairobi, Kenya. Andrea Crosta meets some informants during an investigation © EAL

To meet the demand for tiger teeth in Asia, jaguars too have ended up in the sights of traffickers. Jaguar teeth are the same size as tiger teeth, and it is not easy to tell the difference © Eal

One of the most powerful rhino horn traffickers in Vietnam. The Elephant Action League investigated his organisation for more than a year: although it was not very large, it was able to monitor and effectively sell nearly 500 rhino horns in a single year. Given that approximately 1,200–1,300 rhinoceroses are poached across Africa every year, this group was handling nearly half of that total. This is why it is essential to target these individuals © Eal

I trafficanti sono dei criminali a tutti gli effetti, per questo c'è bisogno dell'intelligence

Andrea Crosta has always had a deep passion for nature. His life changed in 2012 when he witnessed a poaching incident in Kenya and decided to put his intelligence skills to work to help animals © Eal

What were you doing before embarking on this venture?
I was born with an immoderate passion for nature and for wildlife. You cannot do this work without having had a strong passion since childhood. I graduated in natural sciences in Milan, then began working for the La Torbiera wildlife park near Agrate Conturbia. It is a breeding centre for endangered species. In 1998 I launched one of the first Italian e-commerce companies. It was the prehistory of online shopping. From those technologies I moved on to others through a master's in business administration, and for nearly twenty years I worked as a consultant in the field of homeland security, as it is called in the United States. I did this for years — it is a rather particular line of work because you deal with large companies that invest in technologies, some of which became well known after the Snowden case. The buyers are usually governments, but also companies or private individuals.

What do you do, in concrete terms, and how are you organised?
We created a group, which for security reasons remained secret for a long time, called the Special Operations Division, which I lead personally and which is made up exclusively of people from very particular American agencies — two were part of the FBI (the American intelligence agency, ed.), two from the special forces that make up the American defence apparatus. Then we have analysts and people who, before choosing EAL, worked on Islamic terrorism, El Chapo, drug cartels, the Russian and Italian mafias in the United States, and paedophiles. To them I said: "I would like to use your skills, your abilities and your networks. It doesn't matter if you know nothing about conservation, because what matters is fighting those responsible for the destruction of the planet and the extinction of many species" — who are not the poachers, who are often simply people with nothing to their name and children to feed and send to school. I could be a poacher myself if I were in their situation and someone offered me three years' salary to kill an elephant.

Andrea Crosta Elephant action league bracconaggio — Elephant tusks for sale in a shop in Beijing, China. From 31 December 2017, the country permanently closed its ivory market © Eal

If it isn't the poachers, who are the real culprits?
The real culprits are the traffickers, the businessmen, the brokers and the traders who govern the supply chain. To counter them, we build a network of collaborators, sources and undercover individuals in key countries who provide us with information. They pose as traffickers or buyers for months, trying to gather every possible detail. And then we try to assist law enforcement. It isn't easy, because in some countries the forces are too corrupt; in others we have excellent relations, but a lack of resources means crimes against the environment are pushed into the background, so we do part of their work ourselves. This very year we completed the first investigation ever carried out by an NGO in China into rhino horn trafficking. We identified 55 individuals — referred to in the technical jargon as "persons of interest" — in China and Vietnam who traffic rhino horns or other parts of protected animals. We shared the report with the Chinese police, with Interpol and with South African police forces. All of this to help governments defeat the real culprits who — I repeat — are not the poachers, but those who exploit them.

In the documentary Caccia all'avorio it is clear how the black market is fed by the corruption of those who are supposed to combat it. What is your role in all of this?
I can't say where we are active, but there is a country in Africa that, thanks to our work, has arrested eight people in ten years. Police officers are not always aware that they are acting on the strength of our team on the ground, because that team often operates in the shadows — otherwise it risks being decapitated. Thailand is a country where we have managed to establish excellent relations with local forces. We can pass them information in real time without the fear of going to the wrong person. One of the most common mistakes is arresting someone without realising that waiting could yield better results — getting to the "bigger fish." It's like with drugs. When you catch a dealer it's only the beginning: you need to understand where the drugs came from, who bought them, who they were being sold to.

What are the consequences for those who are arrested — the sentence?
It depends on the country. Some have made the laws very strict, as in China, where if you're caught with a container of ivory you go to prison for life. Other African countries have recently updated theirs, and there too you risk a very lengthy prison sentence. The problem, however, is that you can adopt the strictest law in the world, but if you don't then enforce it, it is absolutely useless. Fortunately, China is changing its mindset, because that is fundamental to protecting the planet. Without China, the war cannot be won. EAL is not one of those NGOs that takes aim at the Asian giant. We seek dialogue and collaboration. And I have come to understand that the only possible form of collaboration with China is on a legal footing. You should not approach them from an ethical or cultural standpoint, because their values are very different from ours. On the contrary, if you can demonstrate that someone is breaking their own laws, they are very responsive. And we put the evidence right under their noses. If they wanted to, they could destroy the black market in the main endangered species within a week. But for now it is not among their priorities.

What dynamics lie behind the black market in ivory and other animal parts?
The main threat to the survival of elephants is the tonnes of ivory that travel from Africa to Asia every year despite the entry into force of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (Cites). It is obvious that it is all "fresh," so there is not only a poaching problem but one of illegality across the entire supply chain all the way to China. It is illegal to traffic it in the countries where the elephant is killed, international trafficking is illegal, and selling it in Asia is also illegal.

China has taken the most important decision of recent decades: it announced the closure of its legal ivory market from January. It committed to doing so in 2017, and over the last few months it appears to have done what it promised, progressively closing the shops and centres where ivory was worked and inlaid. China's legal ivory market was by far the single most determining factor in the elephant crisis of recent years. It was an enormous black hole, a laundering centre for illegal ivory arriving from Africa: it entered the legal market, was cleaned up and then put back on the market. The shops were supposed to sell ivory pieces accompanied by a card providing all information about that product. In reality the card was often not attached, so it could be reused for another ivory object, and so on ad infinitum. 2018 is the watershed year. I am confident that the Chinese government will manage to significantly reduce the illegal importation of ivory from Africa, causing the number of elephants killed — 35,000 a year in recent years, ed. — to collapse.

What is the best solution for stopping poaching in the world?
In 2009, together with another person, I led the first investigation into ivory trafficking involving the Islamic terrorists of al-Shabaab. Depending on the region of Africa, there are different actors profiting from elephant tusks. At a certain point, however, you always end up reaching traffickers — who may be African or Asian — who control illegal exports at an international level.

Elephants can be killed all across Africa, but to get them out in large quantities there are ultimately only a few ports and a handful of airports — seven or eight hubs in total. There is the port of Mombasa in Kenya, the port of Zanzibar and that of Dar es Salaam in Tanzania, the port of Maputo in Mozambique, then you go to Cape Town in South Africa and round the other side to reach Gabon. Then there are the international airports of Kenya, Tanzania, South Africa and a few others in central Africa.

The only solution is to destroy the demand for ivory. I am convinced that one of the positive effects of good intelligence work is avoiding the "militarisation of conservation," which I find very worrying. If you go to a national park and ask what they need to combat poaching, they tell you they need men, weapons, ammunition, missiles and drones. But the reality is different: you cannot control territory with rangers and weapons — you control it with intelligence, and therefore by destroying the demand.

How do you destroy the demand for ivory?
You destroy demand in two ways: either by acting at the end of the supply chain, closing the legal market and coming down hard on traffickers, as is happening in China. Or by targeting brokers and traders — the people who control the trade.

For over a year we carried out an investigation into a group of people in Vietnam — a country that is far from cooperative — capable of trafficking almost 500 rhino horns in a single year. If you consider that around 1,200 rhinos are killed every year across the whole of Africa, that means this one group alone was handling almost half of them. This shows how important it is to act on these people rather than on the poachers — who obviously must not be left free to operate, the animals must be protected — but you have to go to the heart of the problem. The problem is this gentleman in Vietnam who processes 500 horns a year. That is where you need to go and take action.

What can we, ordinary people, do?
You have to be careful when you travel. When you go on safari in Africa or when you visit countries in South-East Asia such as Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand, Laos. In these countries you have to keep your eyes open — you can take photographs without taking risks — you have to be careful about what you buy. If you come across a piece of ivory, a tiger's tooth or something of that kind, you need to be aware that buying it is prohibited. And this is where information and awareness come in — education. And for that reason, you, the media, are complementary to our work.

How are things in Italy, and more broadly in Europe?
Paradoxically, Chinese and American legislation is far stricter than European law. Both China and the United States have almost completely closed the legal ivory market. Shops may only sell antique ivory that is more than a hundred years old. In Europe, by contrast, a legal market still exists.

Let's close on a note of hope. Do you think it is still possible to save the animals that are at risk of extinction today?
Of all the animals at risk, the only one I have hope for is the African elephant. There are still almost 400,000 elephants in the world, and China's decision has helped, as has the media campaign of the past two years. A awareness campaign that other animals have not had.

I will always remember an ivory dealer I met in southern China while we were filming the documentary. When we asked him about ivory he became very agitated, he didn't want to answer, and he said that ivory is no longer good business. "I don't want my children to do this thing." I asked him why, and he replied: "Because now even Obama and Prince William are against us." At that point I thought: this business of international pressure works! If it is strong, if it is consistent, it reaches all the way to China. It's a shame there isn't the same pressure for all the other animals. There are very few rhinos left, while there are more tigers in captivity in Texas than there are in the wild.

Andrea Crosta: the man who put his intelligence work at the service of animals victims of poaching