Text size Seventeen people have been jailed -- including two for life -- for running China's largest ever ivory smuggling ring, moving millions of dollars of tusks from west Africa into the mainland's vast domestic market. Demand for ivory carvings and jewellery among China's expanding middle class led to poaching crisis across Africa, and although a 2018 ban on ivory trade in China has improved the situation, a vast black market still exists. A court in the southern city of Guangzhou on Tuesday handed long prison terms to 17 people involved in smuggling over 20 tons of ivory worth more than 1 billion yuan ($156 million).