In 2017, the Shuidong Group was convicted for smuggling ivory and pangolin scales from Southern Africa to China. Following an in-depth investigation from the Environmental Investigation Agency, researchers found that the Shuidong Group utilised a network of informal money changers, front companies, complicit freight agents, and circuitous shipping routes to cover up their activities. Payments were made to local poachers in cash in US dollars by local money changers, who were paid in Chinese renminbi by bank transfer. Although Tanzanian officials had carried out a financial investigation into the group for illegal possession of ivory in 2013, it did not appear to lead to any Money Laundering charges, despite revealing the group’s use of front companies and large cash deposits without being flagged by the banks concerned. The Shuidong Group also deliberately chose commercially inefficient shipping routes to obscure the origin of their contraband from Chinese shipping officials, for example by shipping ivory (concealed alongside plastic pellets) from Mozambique through Kenya, Singapore, South Korea, Hong Kong SAR and finally to China, approximately five months later. The original bill of lading issued in Mozambique covered the journey to South Korea, where traffickers repacked the shipment and used a new set of shipping documents for the onward shipment. Consequently, upon arrival in China, the shipment would appear as though it came from the low-risk jurisdiction of South Korea.