Willy was previously cleared of all charges by Banten\u2019s Pandeglang District Court despite evidence such as phone records and texts linking him to the transactions and renting the Chinese buyer a room in his house. The lead judge on the three-member panel overruled his colleagues, arguing that Willy didn\u2019t profit from facilitating the transactions of the rhino horns.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, the same district court in July 2024 convicted and sentenced Yogi Purwadi, the Indonesian trader whom Willy helped with translations, to four and a half years in prison. The court a month earlier had also convicted and sentenced to a record 12 years in prison Sunendi, a lead poacher of the Javan rhinos.<\/p>\n
Under the 2024 Conservation Act, anyone who trades, keeps, distributes or kills a protected species has committed a crime, punishable with imprisonment of at least three years and up to 15 years.<\/p>\n
The Javan rhino poaching case came to light after Banten police received a May 29, 2023, report about missing camera traps, which have been used for conservation and research purposes from monitoring park activities to helping population census data. Footage from other cameras showed armed intruders in the park, apparently hunting rhinos. Police later identified two local brothers, Sunendi and Sahru, as leaders of separate poaching gangs active in the area.<\/p>\n
A Mongabay Indonesia investigation also revealed signs that the gangs received tipoffs about rhino movements from a park patrol insider. Between 2019 and 2023, the poachers may have killed up to 26 rhinos, around a third of the entire population, according to Banten police.<\/p>\n
Conservation activists have called on law enforcers to continue investigating, as four other suspects still remained at large, adding that the poaching operation was highly organized and likely involved international support, making it more than a local crime.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis was a highly structured hunt, a patterned crime,\u201d said Nanda Nababan, a coordinator of the advocacy group Indonesian Wildlife Crime Lawyers and Researchers Association (APKSLI), said. \u201cIf this is not promptly addressed, it could lead to new crimes.\u201d<\/p>\n
Nanda emphasized the urgency of securing key evidence, including weapons and sensitive rhino tracking data, to prevent further criminal activity. He also noted that the true scale of the poaching remained unclear, pointing out discrepancies between the number of rhino horns admitted by the defendants and the police findings of 26 rhinos killed.<\/p>\n
Over the past decade, several Javan rhinos captured on camera traps in Ujung Kulon have mysteriously disappeared, with killings believed to have started in 2018. A 2023 report by conservation NGO Auriga Nusantara found that 15 rhinos went missing and three were confirmed dead between 2019 and 2021, yet all were still included in the government\u2019s official population data. The report also raised concerns about flawed census methods and a rise in poaching activity in the area.<\/p>\n
Auriga\u2019s estimate of missing rhinos exceeds the government\u2019s count of 11, though both are lower than police figures, which suggest 26 rhinos were poached based on suspect confessions.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, the Ujung Kulon National Park earlier this month reported the identification of three new Javan rhino individuals using camera traps and footprint analysis. The calves, two observed directly via camera footage and one through footprints, range in age from a few months to more than 2 years.<\/p>\n Officials attributed the discoveries to a fully protected area system that restricted human activity in the Ujung Kulon Peninsula, and to a spatially explicit monitoring system, involving systematic placement of camera traps across 35 clusters.<\/p>\n Still, the resurgence of rhino poaching and the possible loss of dozens of rhinos has raised alarms about the gap between official population estimates and the true number of these critically endangered animals. More significantly, recent evidence points to a declining population of Javan rhinos, contradicting the government\u2019s claims of stable growth.<\/p>\n \u201cFrom the start, we observed that this case was quite complex. Many facts remain undisclosed,\u201d Nanda said.<\/p>\n