vira: it's not uncommon for ministers, it's not t uncommon for local governors to be involved.hutson: corruption that extends all l the way to the preresidenl level. the kinds of corruption that couldn't t happen witithout presidentitial authorizatition from the presidedents of congo 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 bebe prosecuting a 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 n numbers fell from 1.2 millioion to around 450,000. narratator: that was more than half of ththe entire elephant population of africa at that time. in the mid-1980s, the environmental investigation agency, or eia, an independent nongovernmental group, uncovered evidence a