COVER STORY
Smuggled Ivory Next stop on the tour was the evidence room. It was jam packed with racks of elephant tusks, boxes of cut ivory blocks, piles of rhino horn and curiously, several fake rhino horns. They were made out of wood, clay, and even mud. The texture and shape were all wrong. The fake horns are usually passed off at night by hustlers to dishonest buyers hoping to cash in on the very lucrative illicit trade.
Rhino horn is prized in the Far East for its supposed aphrodisiac properties. The horn is ground into powder and used in traditional medicines in the Orient. In Korea it is rolled into balls and covered with gold leaf to make c h u n g sin h w a n , a remedy for high blood pressure, and swallowed whole.
In China, rhino horn is known as k w on g kwok and the ground powder is encapsulated. In Yemen rhino horn is used for the handle of ornamental daggers. Previously it was only bought by the very wealthy, but now more an d more Y em en is , lu c r a t iv e ly employed in the Gulf oil fields, can afford a dagger.
Rhino poaching is a big money business and getting bigger all the time. As one conservationist explained it to me, the black rhino’s front horn can weigh as much as ten pounds, and the back ho rn , ab o u t six pounds. Rhino horn brings about $50 an ounce in the Far East and in Yemen, so a single rhino is worth about $11,000.
While heralded by some as a great idea by some conservationists, drugging the rhinos and sawing off their horns to make the animals valueless to poachers hasn’t proven to be a cure all. Taking off the horns does l i t t le good. The poachers s t i l l shoot the hornless rhino so they don’t spend time tracking the same animal in the future. The ESPU is very scorntul of foreign experts who suggest otherwise.
Deep cover and false fla gs While s till a captain with the stock theft unit, Pieter Lategan was instructed by the former Minister of Law and Order, Adriaan Vlok, to take change of investigations into international syndicates of organised crime. The officers of the stock theft unit, mostly born in the veld, are at home in the bush. P ie te r L a tegan was a farm boy, tu rn ed policeman. Having grown up in the rugged semi-desert area of Karoo, he is a staunch conservationist who has relentlessly hunted down poachers and smugglers. Lategan is well known internationally amongst conservationists and wildlife police as a no-nonsense cop. He is personally committed to wildlife conservation law enforcement.
He says, “If we fail to effectively control the ille gal trade an offence is committed against every tax-paying citizen, by way of loss of tourist revenue and the destruction of our natural heritage”.
L a te g an a t te n d e d th e F ed e ra l Law Enforcement T rain ing Center (FLETC) at Glynco in the US, graduating from a course in wildlife enforcement operations in 1993.
He says, “Ten years ago undercover ops were unknown (to us). There was a lack of knowledge to investigate organised crim e.” ESPU undercover operations were initiated in 1989 by Operation Lock, which involved the arrest or termination of ivory and rhino horn poachers by ex-British SAS soldiers in a mission funded by a conservation organisation.
Lategan worked closely with the British operatives who were able to compile surveillance files on suspected smugglers. While ESPU officers are known to many in the US thanks to a TV show on the D is covery channel, it was not shown in South Africa to protect ESPU tactics and techniques as well as the identities of the officers.
Undercover operations are inherently marked by a secretiveness which leaves the agent without friends and cut off from his family. This is especially true of deep cover operatives who might join a crime syndicate for as long as a year. All ESPU undercover agents are South African Police Force officers. Informants are also a key ingredient to success in the undercover game.
“Players” in the international smuggling business are co-opted or turned. Some are double agents constantly leaking information to the ESPU.
Colonel Lategan stressed that the ESPU is careful in its dealings with informants: “There’s a fine line between enticement and accommodation. Agents can be charged in court with enticem ent.” But ESPU agents seem to have no problems in this regard.
When Lategan talks about in filtratin g the illegal trade in wildlife, he is not talking about the occasional neighbourhood poacher — he is referring to organised syndicates who can move tons of materiel through several countries. Establishing b ona f i d e s in the international smuggling and illic it wildlife trafficking rings is not as d ifficu lt as one might suppose.
A ccording to Lategan: “Your b iggest cover is a South African passport. They (the poachers, smugglers, and dealers) naturally believe a white undercover agent is a buyer because that’s what they’ve seen in the past — white South African buyers.”
Lategan speaks from experience, having particip ated in several undercover operations. Once while undercover he made an arrest, armed only with a feather duster, by sticking the handle in the suspect’s back and waiting for assistance.
Superintendent Pierre Erasmus is Lategan’s deputy and the brains behind many of the un it’s undercover stings and investigations. Erasmus, while serving as a police officer, first went undercover in what is known as the “Boer Mafia”, which surprisingly has blacks, coloureds and Indians in its ranks.
Erasmus actually spent several stints in j a i l w h ile undercover in the Boer M afia where he shared a cell with the Mafia’s Godfather. After his cover was blown, at the end of the investigation, he received several death threats and is still under a protective escort. Erasmus hasn’t testified in a th ird of the cases yet. Some of them date back four or five years, with as much as $100m at stake. Erasmus is the star witness in about 95% of the cases. It’s easy to see why a contract is out on him!
Reptilian smugglers “I don’t know much about reptiles,” Erasmus said, pointing to two preserved specimens on his desk, “These were sent to me by a friend in New York.” But reptiles are now big business. They are, unbelievably, the third highest smuggled commodity in the world behind drugs and guns. The il l ic it trade in illegally harvested reptiles amounts to about $50 m illio n a year. That’s some expensive snakes.
According to Erasmus, “Reptiles broadened the v is ion o f the u n i t .” Operation Cobra, involving the smuggling of exotic reptiles was scheduled to terminate in three months time.
In a previous operation in 1994, Erasmus went undercover in the exotic snake trade, m asquerading as a w ea lth y South A frican businessm an lo oking to make a k i llin g as a reptile smuggler. Because his
December 1998 New African 11
