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1/ "A 2015 report by SmallArmsSurvey, a Switzerland-based research group, showed that the free flow of high-powered rifles & other weapons in Africa has significantly increased the scale of poaching. In turn, that has bolstered the illicit arms trade." (more) @ArleBear🐾
1/ "A 2015 report by SmallArmsSurvey, a Switzerland-based research group, showed that the free flow of high-powered rifles & other weapons in Africa has significantly increased the scale of poaching. In turn, that has bolstered the illicit arms trade." (more) @ArleBear🐾
2/ High-powered rifles "have had a disastrous effect — the latest factor in the precipitous decline in the worldwide rhino population from 500,000 in the early 20th century to fewer than 30,000 today, with the vast majority in South Africa." (more...)
3/ "Protrack, a private anti-poaching company, began finding the CZ [CZ-USA] rifles near rhino carcasses as early as 2011. 'We didn’t see this level of poaching until these high-powered rifles were introduced into the system,' said Vincent Barkas, Protrack’s owner." (more...)
4/ "Police records and incident reports from similar anti-poaching watchdogs indicate that 90 percent of all weapons found at wildlife crime scenes in South Africa and Mozambique since then were CZ rifles." (more...)
5/ "Kathi Lynn Austin, a former UN🇺🇳 arms-trafficking expert who had worked on the investigation of Viktor Bout, the notorious Russian arms dealer. Ms Austin is executive director of the Conflict Awareness Project, an organization that investigates int'l arms trafficking. (con't)
6/ In 2016, Ms. Austin, attended a gun show in Las Vegas after learning that CZ-USA officials would be there. Ms. Austin said she observed CZ and CZ-USA company representatives meeting with several Mozambican companies. (con't)
7/ She had earlier traced several weapons CZ sold to those companies that were later found at poaching crime scenes in South Africa."
"Emails obtained by Ms. Austin & fed'l investigators show that the Czech🇨🇿 company was made aware that Safari Classics with the Kansas branding...
"Emails obtained by Ms. Austin & fed'l investigators show that the Czech🇨🇿 company was made aware that Safari Classics with the Kansas branding...
8/ ... were used to poach rhinos at least as early as May 2015. Ms. Austin said she personally met with company officials and told them that their weapons were being used in wildlife crimes." (more...)
9/ "But while company officials insist that all Safari Classics that are for export are made in the Czech Republic, CZ-USA’s own sales catalogs advertise rifles that are built to order by Triple River Gunsmithing, a small family-owned company in Warsaw, Mo." (one more...)
10/ "This fall, the HouseForeignAffairsCmte began its own investigation into the use of possible illegally exported rifles in poaching crimes, requesting...'any & all information related to CZUB & its subsidiary CZ-USA...'"
@RepEliotEngel may be new chair:
progressive.org/dispatches/dem…
@RepEliotEngel may be new chair:
progressive.org/dispatches/dem…
