South London Dealers Jailed After £145,000 eBay Ivory Sale

Two south London dealers, Guy Buckle and Sik-Hung Or have been sentenced for selling antique ivory fans on eBay to buyers in China and the US. The items were illegally exported without the required export permits (ATG Reporter, ' South London pair jailed after selling £145,000 worth of antique ivory to overseas buyers on eBay', Antiques Trade Gazette 27 Sep 2019). They were each sentenced to 28 months imprisonment after pleading guilty to three counts of illegally exporting ivory goods in breach of the Customs and Excise Management Act 1979.

A police investigation established that 136 carved ivory fans – most of them 19th century Cantonese – had been exported outside the EU by the pair between January 2014 and November 2017 with the sales totalling £145,259. As antiques, the fans could be lawfully sold in the UK. However Buckle and Or made the majority of their sales to purchasers in China, Hong Kong and the US and dispatched the items without the necessary ‘re-export’ permits issued by the Animal and Plant Health Agency. Permits would not have been issued as import bans on ivory have been in place in the US and China since 2017.

Two items had been seized in November 2017 by UK Border Force at Heathrow when parcels being sent abroad were found to each contain an 'antique' carved ivory fan. Officers quickly identified the sender as an online trader selling identical carved ivory items.

When the pair’s home address was searched in March 2018, a total of 291 carved ivory fans, all from protected or endangered species, and four pieces of unworked elephant ivory was seized.

The men ignored the legal requirements in relation to the sale of specimens derived from protected/endangered species, though whether their arrest and sentencing will act as a deterrent to those involved in the illegal sale and export of such items remains to be seen. Dealers will be dealers, collectors will want to collect, regardless of the legality or ethics. EBay anyway has a self-imposed ivory ban in place for more than 10 years, but nasty dealers still sell it there regardless, under not-so-secret code names (like the illegal trade in wild bird eggs and human remains can from time to time still be seen to be going on there too).