Japanese Ivory Traders Arrested for Alleged Illegal Elephant Ivory Sales

On June 2, 2025, Tokyo police arrested Daigo Ivory’s former president and three others for alleged illegal activity related to elephant ivory sales. The accused have admitted to the allegations, according to media reports.

The individuals are accused of allegedly masking elephant ivory as mammoth ivory on an internet auction platform that banned elephant ivory sales, and are charged with false sales under Japan’s Unfair Competition Prevention Act, and for being in noncompliance with the Act on Conservation of Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (ACES). Specifically under the ACES, Daigo apparently failed to use management cards for transactions to ensure traceability for these sales. 

International commercial trade in ivory is banned under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Fauna and Flora (CITES), which also calls for the closure of domestic markets worldwide to prevent stimulating demand for ivory and leakages onto the black market.

Unfortunately, the recent arrest of ivory traders in Japan is unsurprising, and indicative of a broken system. Japan has the largest remaining legal ivory market, with nearly 6,000 government-registered traders. However many online retailers have banned the sale of ivory on their platforms to eliminate their role in illegal activity, including Yahoo! Japan, Rakuten, and Mercari.

Daigo Ivory sells elephant ivory on its own website, and also sells on other internet auction platforms, which are critical sales channels with broad customer reach and limited accountability. Yahoo! Japan Auctions ended the sale of elephant ivory in 2019, but Daigo Ivory was formerly a top seller. Recent analysis by JTEF indicates that Daigo Ivory was selling a large number of items suspected to be elephant ivory (identified as “ivory like” or mammoth) on Yahoo! Japan Auctions.  

Tokyo police believe that Daigo Ivory sold around 4,600 items suspected to be ivory through internet sites over a two-year period starting in 2022, generating total sales of about 200 million yen (~$1.3 million USD). A registered dealer, and part of the coalition guiding the ivory trade policies in Japan, Daigo Ivory apparently mislabeled ivory to tap into the broader market, circumventing company policies. According to media reports, the accused stated they wanted to avoid having their listings taken down – the false listing was apparently intentional. Revealingly, former Daigo Ivory president, Nobumasa Daigo said “I thought (illegal ivory sales/an ACES violation) were about as minor as littering a cigarette butt. I didn’t think the police would crack down on it.”

Daigo Ivory is a member of the Tokyo Ivory Arts and Crafts Association, part of the Japan Federation of Ivory Arts and Crafts Associations, which holds a leadership role within Japan’s Public-Private Council for the Promotion of Appropriate Ivory Trade Measures, established to ensure appropriate implementation of the ivory trade system in Japan. Despite Daigo Ivory’s role in this compliance promotion body, Daigo Ivory appears to have knowingly violated private company policies in order to sell elephant ivory online. It is therefore disappointing that following this incident, the Japanese government only intends to remind sellers of the rules, which is woefully inadequate to address what appears to be intentional illegal activity. As a starting point, Daigo Ivory’s ivory business registration should be revoked immediately. 

Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department was able to seize some of Daigo’s ivory, but where did all the ivory from the sales, worth over 1 million USD, go? Ivory purchased from Daigo Ivory has previously been implicated in two court cases in China involving ivory illegally exported from Japan. It is therefore not unreasonable to expect that other ivory sold by Daigo Ivory may have also ended up in other countries, in contravention of Japanese and international law. Japan’s legal ivory market provides a cover, as EIA and JTEF have documented, for illegal activity and provides an easy source of ivory that can be illegally exported – especially when purchased online.

Japanese law enforcement officers have a challenging job – they have to distinguish between legal elephant ivory, illegal elephant ivory sales, and mammoth ivory. Closing the market for elephant ivory would surely simplify enforcement, detection, investigation, and prosecution. Under CITES, countries are urged to close their domestic ivory markets if they are contributing to poaching or illegal trade – clearly, Japan’s market is doing just that. 

Any legal sale of ivory serves to stimulate the market and provides a means to launder illicit ivory. Japan is currently undergoing a review of its law that governs ivory trade, the ACES. EIA continues to urge the Japanese government to make revisions that close the domestic ivory market to reduce demand, simplify enforcement efforts domestically, and eliminate a legal supply of ivory for illegal export.

To read more about Japan’s ivory trade, visit https://www.stopjapanivorytrade.org/