Man accused of killing thousands of elephants bags 12 years in prison

Tanzania’s most notorious elephant poacher, nicknamed ‘The Devil’, has been sentenced to 12 years in prison.

The suspect identified as Boniface Matthew Maliango was responsible for killing thousands of elephants, a conservation organisation said. He was arrested in Dar es Salaam in September 2015, alongside his brothers, Lucas Mathayo Maliango and Abdallah Ally Chaoga.

The three were arrested while attempting to smuggle tusks worth more than $850,000 (£700,000).

According to The Elephant Action League, which fights wildlife crime, they said he(Boniface) ran an ivory trafficking network across five African countries: Tanzania, Burundi, Zambia, Mozambique and southern Kenya.

Maliango was also accused of supplying ivory to Chinese citizen Yang Fenglan, known as the ‘Ivory Queen’, who is on trial in Tanzania for trafficking more than 700 elephant tusks worth $2.5m (£1.7