hutson: corruption that extends all the wato the psidential vel.the nds of corruption at couldn't happen without presidential authorization from the presidents ofongo and sudan and other countries as well. shelley: and therefore, there's no reason that the police will investigate this crime or that the courts will be prosecuting and judging any of the really high level traffickers. so in most cases, the individuals are going scot-free because of high-level corruption. narrator: only an estimated 10% of traffickers ever get caught, and for those that do, penalties are usually small. massive numbers of elephants have been slaughtered for ivory before. knights: 1970 and 1989, african elephant numbers fell from 1.2 million to around 450,000. narrator: that was more than half of the entire elephant population of africa at that time. in the mid-1980s, the environmental investigation agency, or eia, an independent nongovernmental group, uncovered evidence about the scope of the ivory trade. they filmed secret chinese ivory carving factories in dubai. raw