The Uganda Wildlife Authority (UWA), acting in close collaboration with the Uganda Police Force, has arrested five suspects found in possession of 106 kilograms of elephant ivory in Bukedea District, a seizure that authorities say represents a significant blow to one of the region’s most active ivory trafficking networks.
According to UWA, the intelligence-led operation was carried out in Ariet Village, Kachubala, in Aligoi Sub-county, where officers recovered six cut pieces of elephant ivory.
The suspects are currently detained at Bukedea Central Police Station and are expected to be arraigned before the Standards, Utilities and Wildlife Court in Makindye, Kampala.
They face charges of illegal possession of protected wildlife specimens and conspiracy to commit a felony under the Uganda Wildlife Act.
At current black-market rates, which can range between $1,000 and $1,500 per kilogram for raw ivory, the 106-kilogram haul could be valued at up to $159,000 on illicit markets, underscoring the enormous financial stakes that drive organised wildlife crime in the region.
Speaking on the Bukedea operation, UWA’s Assistant Commissioner for Law Enforcement and Security and Head of the Wildlife Crime Unit, Margaret Kasumba, described the arrest as a breakthrough.
“This operation is a major blow to ivory trafficking networks,” she said. “The recovery of 106 kilograms of ivory highlights both the scale of the challenge and our strengthened capacity to disrupt these criminal syndicates.”
UWA says it will continue to strengthen its enforcement and intelligence capacity, building on inter-agency partnerships with the Uganda Police Force, Uganda Revenue Authority, and other bodies that have proven vital to recent successes. The authority also called on the public to report suspicious activity, stressing that community vigilance is a critical component of the national conservation effort.
The Bukedea bust arrives at a pivotal moment for Uganda’s elephants. Once decimated by decades of civil conflict and unchecked poaching, Uganda’s elephant population has undergone one of Africa’s most remarkable conservation recoveries: from roughly 2,000 individuals in the early 1980s to nearly 7,975 by 2021 an increase of almost 300 percent over four decades of sustained conservation effort.
Today, an estimated 5,000 elephants are found across Uganda’s major wildlife landscapes, including Kidepo Valley, Murchison Falls, and the Greater Virunga Landscape. But that recovery remains fragile. Elephants reproduce slowly. A female gives birth to one calf on average every 8.6 years, and the species’ maximum annual population growth rate is only around 6 percent. A single poaching wave can undo years of hard-won conservation gains.
Continent-wide, the picture is even more alarming. Recent research published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences found that African savanna elephant populations have declined by an average of 70 percent over the past five decades, while forest elephant sites have declined by as much as 90 percent. Every day, an estimated 96 elephants are killed across Africa to feed demand for ivory.
The Bukedea operation is the latest in a string of high-profile ivory seizures that signal a sharpening of Uganda’s enforcement capabilities. Just last month, on 22 February 2026, the Special Wildlife Crime Unit and Uganda Police Force arrested a suspected trafficker in Nwoya District and recovered a staggering 154 kilograms of raw elephant ivory, ten pieces of raw tusks, in another intelligence-led operation.
The UWA Executive Director, Dr. James Musinguzi, described it as a clear statement that Uganda will not tolerate wildlife crime, warning that “northern Uganda has been exploited by traffickers as a transit route” but that enforcement presence “is stronger than ever.”
In September 2025, Operation Icarus in the Fort Portal region netted two suspects attempting to sell 45.2 kilograms of ivory from a larger network. In December 2025, Operation Lamassu triggered by intelligence from the Uganda Revenue Authority, led to the arrest of four suspects after officers intercepted a bus at a vehicle checkpoint and found ivory hidden in a box.
Earlier in the year, Operation Coach in March 2025 resulted in the seizure of 41.7 kilograms of ivory that had been buried within the grounds of a government agricultural research station. Authorities said that trafficking networks had infiltrated legitimate institutional infrastructure.
These operations reflect a clear strategic shift at UWA away from reactive patrol enforcement and toward proactive, intelligence-driven interdiction that targets the criminal networks behind poaching, not just the individuals caught holding contraband.
Uganda’s geography makes it a persistent transit corridor for ivory originating from the Democratic Republic of Congo and other Central African nations.
Preliminary assessments of several recent seizures, including the March 2025 Operation Coach haul, pointed to the DRC as the likely source of the ivory, highlighting the transnational nature of the trade that Uganda’s enforcement agencies must contend with.
Wildlife crime is not simply an environmental issue. The Wildlife Conservation Society has documented how ivory trafficking finances armed insurgencies, with evidence linking the Lord’s Resistance Army’s operations in the DRC’s Garamba region to elephant poaching.
The illegal wildlife trade is now considered a transnational organised crime, involving the same criminal infrastructure that moves drugs, arms, and people across borders. A report from the Wildlife Conservation Society notes that over a recent five-year period, nearly 9,961 kilograms of ivory, 17.75 kilograms of rhino horn, and 1,374 kilograms of pangolin scales were confiscated in Uganda alone.
The financial incentives driving the trade are formidable. While a poacher on the ground may receive as little as $80 per kilogram of raw ivory, the same material can fetch $400 per kilogram at Southeast Asian transit hubs and up to $1,100 per kilogram once processed by carvers in end-market countries. Criminal brokers absorb the difference and the communities and ecosystems that bear the cost receive nothing.
The five suspects from Bukedea await arraignment before the Standards, Utilities and Wildlife Court in Makindye the dedicated wildlife crime tribunal that has become central to Uganda’s judicial response to wildlife crime.
Conservation experts say consistent prosecution and meaningful sentencing are essential to deterrence, warning that enforcement gains can be quickly reversed if the courts fail to hold traffickers to account.