Elephant poacher Boniface Matthew Maliango had evaded arrest many times. Now, Tanzania’s top elephant poacher, made notorious in the film The Ivory Game and nicknamed ‘The Devil’, has been sentenced to 12 years in prison.
Responsible for killing thousands of elephants, according to one conservation organisation, he was arrested in Dar es Salaam in September 2015 after a year-long manhunt.
His crimes were the focus of a Netflix documentary film, The Ivory Game, produced by actor Leonardo DiCaprio.
Maliango’s nickname, Shetani, means devil in Swahili. He was sentenced alongside his brothers, Lucas Mathayo Maliango and Abdallah Ally Chaoga.
Maliango was 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 (£1.7m).
