Chinese court cases reveal most trafficked rhino horns come from Southern Africa
Chinese court cases reveal most trafficked rhino horns come from Southern Africa
Spoorthy Raman
21 Apr 2026<br>Africa
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A new report from the Environmental Investigation Agency analyzed more than 250 rhino horn trafficking cases prosecuted in China between 2013 and 2025 to understand smuggling routes and trends within the country.<br>Chinese courts have convicted more than 500 traffickers, who received an average of 4.5 years in prison and fines of about 92,322 yuan ($13,540). Most rhino horns smuggled into China came from South Africa and Mozambique, entering by land across the border from Vietnam, Myanmar and Laos.<br>Rhino horns are widely used in traditional Chinese medicine, but most court cases involved sculpted rhino horns and trinkets sold in antique and curio shops. About one-third of consumers were in big cities: Beijing, Jiangsu and Shanghai.<br>Unrelenting demand for rhino horns, along with attempts by Southern African countries to open legal trade in stockpiled horns, could make it challenging to fight trafficking, as poaching decimates rhino populations across their African and Asian ranges.
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Rhinoceroses, one of the largest groups of animals on the planet, are fighting a battle for survival because of a prized body part: their horn, which they use to defend territories, assert dominance and protect their young.
But people use this keratinous horn as medicine, adornment and decoration. In traditional Chinese medicine, it’s believed to have broad healing properties. The horns are also crafted into jewelry, and carved horns are displayed as luxury items.
The unrelenting demand for their horns has decimated these mega-herbivores across their Asian and African ranges, and combating the trade is a tough fight: Rhino horns are extremely valuable. They’re worth an estimated $20,000 per kilogram (about $9,090 per pound) on the black market, often trafficked and sold by transnational organized crime syndicates.
Poaching has pushed three of the five living rhino species to the brink. The International Rhino Foundation estimates that some 500,000 roamed the wild at the start of the 20th century; today, just under 27,000 remain, and a rhino is killed every 15 hours.
China is the largest consumer, but data on trade within its borders is limited. A team from the U.S.-based Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) tried to bridge the information gap in a new report.
It analyzed 258 court cases involving horn trafficking between 2013 and October 2025, posted on the China Judgments Online database. These court records revealed that authorities seized 700 kilograms (1,543 pounds) of rhino horns during that period, which means that perhaps 200 rhinos were killed to supply this market during that period.
There were 512 arrests. Those smugglers faced prison sentences averaging 4.5 years and paid fines of about 92,322 yuan ($13,540). Most of these crimes involved less than 10 kg (22 lb) of rhino horn.
A southern white rhino from South Africa. Rhinos use their horns to defend territories, assert dominance and protect their young. Image by Emily Turteltaub Nelson via iNaturalist (CC BY-NC 4.0).<br>China’s long-drawn appetite for rhino horns
Demand for rhino horn grew alongside rising wealth in China and Southeast Asia in the 1980s and ’90s, and poachers decimated all five species of these mega-herbivores in Asia and Africa. Three are now critically endangered: the black rhino (Diceros bicornis), the Javan rhino (Rhinoceros sondaicus) and the Sumatran rhino (Dicerorhinus sumatrensis). Amid poaching and ever-shrinking habitat, Africa’s white rhino (Ceratotherium simum), the most populous and least threatened species, has dwindled to a two-decade low, according to the most recent IUCN-TRAFFIC assessment. The greater one-horned rhino (Rhinoceros unicornis) is threatened.
Poaching and trafficking of rhino horns continue despite a ban on international trade in 1977 under CITES, a global wildlife trade treaty. In China, domestic trade was legal until 1993, when it was outlawed.
But then, 25 years later, the Chinese ban was partially lifted. In 2018, the government permitted the use of powdered horns from farmed rhinos in “qualified hospitals by qualified doctors recognized by the State Administration of Traditional Chinese Medicine” and also as “cultural relics.”
For decades, researchers monitoring the international rhino horn trade have been aware that China is the largest consumer, based on seizures, which are often a sliver of the actual trade. But information on the volume of trade within its borders is limited.
“We know that China is one of the primary end-use countries for rhino horn,” said Taylor Tench, senior wildlife policy analyst at EIA and the lead of...