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ABSTRACT
Anti-poaching measures, regulatory interventions and demand reduction campaigns have been instituted to curb the flow of illegal wildlife contraband. While these measures are laudable, they appear to achieve limited success in disrupting illegal wildlife markets. Using the example of the illegal market in rhinoceros horn, this article focuses on security coordinating mechanisms that render illegal transnational flows of rhino horn resilient and difficult to disrupt. While analyses of legal or formal markets focus on the coordination problems of value, cooperation and competition, it is argued here that the need to exercise caution and implement a security plan becomes more pressing when transacting in illegal and transnational markets. The paper focuses on security precautions of illegal market actors at the source and en route to consumer markets. The label of ‘organised crime’ is of limited use unless the concept bridges the legal/illegal divide, incorporating actors from the legal and criminal realm. The objective is to highlight the need for a deeper understanding of actors and their relationships to develop regulatory and criminal justice interventions that disrupt illegal markets and transnational flows in the long term.
Acknowledgement
The author would like to thank Derica Lambrechts and two anonymous reviewers for their insightful comments on an earlier draft of the article. A special tribute goes to the key informants who took the time to participate in the research, and the research assistants who assisted with translations and transcriptions.
Notes
1. The United Nations Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) provides the international regulatory framework for international trade in endangered plant and animal species. All rhino species were placed in Appendix I in 1977, effectively banning international trade except under exceptional circumstances (Milliken and Shaw Citation2012, 44).
2. Ayling (Citation2013, 69) attributes two capacities to the concept of resilience, namely ‘the ability to absorb and thereby withstand disruption’ and ‘to adapt, when necessary, to changes arising from that disruption’.
3. In other words, organized crime networks specializing in a bouquet of related illicit trades, such as drug and diamond smuggling, human trafficking and trading in other wildlife contraband like elephant ivory and abalone, have moved into the lucrative trade with rhino horn).
4. The ‘levels’ pyramid reflects the thinking of South African law enforcement agencies such as the Directorate for Priority Crime Investigations (DPCI) and the National Wildlife Crime Reaction Unit (NWCRU).
5. US authorities issued a one million Dollar reward for information leading to the dismantling of the network in 2013 (Kerry Citation2013). The criminal network was involved in a clever scam, which involved the falsification of hunting permits.
6. Market actors face social risks due to incomplete knowledge of their exchange partners’ intentions and the quality of the product they are interested in purchasing (Beckert Citation2009, 259). The possibility of a breach of contract or non–performance constitutes a risk to any economic exchange. In illegal markets, these risks arise from ‘asymmetric distribution of information regarding the price, product quality and the possible opportunism of exchange partners in light of incomplete or non–enforceable contracts’ (Beckert and Wehinger Citation2013, 17).
7. Transaction costs relate to the costs of participating in a market. Williamson (Citation1989) argued that frequency of the exchange, specificity, uncertainty, limited rationality and opportunistic behaviour are determinants of such costs.
8. The Convention had been in force for 41 years at the time this article was written in 2016.
9. These ‘big’ cases revolve around Dawie Groenewald, Hugo Ras and Chumlong Lemthongthai.
10. The South African DPCI employs the term ‘kingpin’ to depict local crime bosses. A kingpin typically arranges local crime operations while maintaining a link to traffickers or buyers. For the sake of consistency, the controversial term is employed in this dissertation. It is acknowledged that ‘queenpins’ do exist and the term ‘kingpin’ could be construed as sexist and gender insensitive. However, those interviewed (bosses, poachers and investigators) used the term frequently and felt comfortable with the labeling, associated narratives and meanings.
11. An anti-poacher (Interview, KwaZulu-Natal, Citation2013) related how an obese teacher from an urban centre in South Africa had joined a spontaneously constituted poaching group. The quartet jumped into a saloon (an inappropriate vehicle when driving on sand roads in the bush), stopped on the road next to a rhino reserve. After scaling the game fence with difficulty, an anti-poaching unit intercepted them. The unfit teacher was apparently struggling to keep up with the rest of his crew.
12. These fringe benefits may or may not materialize as interviews with several convicted poachers revealed. The ‘boss’ had arranged for legal representation in a few cases. A handful of legal teams appear to defend these rhino criminals; in other words, the same criminal lawyers appear on behalf of alleged rhino criminals in South African courts (Interview with prosecutors, 2013).
13. Some convicted poachers claimed that they were unlucky and caught during their very first hunt. While few criminals would admit to any crimes beyond the crime at hand, some might have been ‘unlucky first-timers’.
14. South American law enforcement officials refer to ‘dead meat for piranhas’ when drug syndicates tip them off about an expected (small) drug delivery. While law enforcement deals with the tip off and is sufficiently distracted, other drug couriers with larger quantities may pass through ports of entry undetected.
15. 40% of the world’s rhinos survive in the KNP, South Africa’s signature national park. The conservation area is roughly the size of Wales and borders (and includes part of) Mozambique.
16. Trained in low intensity warfare, ex-soldiers with bush-tracking skills from the days of the apartheid bush wars were connected with a number of poaching incidents in game reserves and parks in KwaZulu–Natal.
17. Game and commercial farmers are reputed to hold hunting rifles and other high calibre rifles on their properties. Organized crime investigators (Interviews, Citation2013) pointed to the possible connection between farm attacks and rhino poaching; however, only tenuous links were made between ballistics at rhino crime scenes and stolen hunting rifles.
18. Kruger officials estimated that 70% of poachers were entering the Park from Mozambique until 2015.
19. One anti-poaching official (Interview, Citation2013) recounted that he found raw eggs in the pocket of a poacher. The sangoma had told the man that he would have to turn around as soon as the egg broke because it would no longer be safe in the Park. The egg was intact at the time of the poacher’s arrest.
20. The horn is usually removed as close as possible to the growth point to maximize weight and profit. Hacking or cutting close to the growth point inevitably involves blood and gore, which decompose and rot once taken off a rhino.
21. Olivier made the claim about scruples and ‘blood money’ to private investigator Paul O’Sullivan and later in his police statement (Olivier Citation2011, 10). Rademeyer (Citation2012) relates that Olivier had a rather murky past and dubious reputation. His motivation to inform on the dealings of Xaysavang remains unclear; however, the sudden concern for rhinos appears out of character after previously sourcing 100s of rhinos for the network (Interview with intermediary, 2013).
22. The National Prosecution Authority (NPA) reinstated the charges against game farmer Marnus Steyl in 2012. He fought for a permanent stay of execution, which was granted in June 2015.
23. It would appear rather naïve of Lemthongthai to leave behind such detailed accounts of his business dealings. He was however sure of the legitimacy of his dealings in light of him attaining the ‘right’ paperwork to move the rhino horns ‘legally’ out of the country. He believed that he was acting within the limits of the South African law, which permitted Thai nationals to hunt rhinos and export the horns to their home country. While he was paying R 60, 000 to R 65, 000 per kg of rhino horn, poached rhino horn would enter the ‘black market’ at a cost of R 200, 000 to the poaching organizer. Although Lemthongthai’s alleged profit margin was less than R 100, 000 per rhino hunt, poaching intermediaries would make a profit of R 450, 000 per hunt (Interview, 2013). It is noteworthy how pseudo trophy hunting was legitimized as the lesser of two evils. Moreover, while the digital record on Lemthongthai’s laptop provides insight into the ‘pseudo-legal’ dealings of the Xaysavang network, there was no paper trail of illegal dealings. According to sources within the criminal underworld (Interviews, 2013 and 2014), the network has been involved in the illegal killing and dehorning of at least 700 rhinos in southern Africa.
24. The Kenya Wildlife Service and customs officers seized 260 kg of elephant ivory and 18 kg of rhino horn at Nairobi airport in 2008. The shipment was registered to Xaysavang Import and Export and bound for Laos (Connett Citation2014).
25. According to interdiction data of Vietnam’s CITES Scientific Authority provided in 2013 (personal communication, 2013), all interdictions involving rhino horn had occurred at the two main international airports in Ho Chi Minh City and Ha Noi, except for one interdiction along a major highway in 2004.
26. A curious adaption was the use of white Mozambicans of Portuguese extraction to transport horn from Massingir to Maputo. These runners supposedly carry an aura of privilege and status, which allows them to navigate through roadblocks without being stopped or searched (Interviews with intelligence officers, 2013).
27. Rhino horn has also been smuggled via Cape Town International Airport out of the country. Police and intelligence data suggests the use of the international airports in Manzini, Swaziland and Maseru, Lesotho. Due to the high number of pilots involved in rhino poaching syndicates, organized crime investigators believe that organized trafficking groups use small light airplanes and transport rhino horn to neighbouring countries from the many unregistered landing strips sprinkled across South Africa.
28. Tet, the ‘Feast of the First Morning of the First Day’ refers to Vietnamese New Year. The date of the most important cultural event in Vietnam usually falls between January and February.
29. Vu Moc Anh was recalled after the incident. Law enforcement investigators (Interviews, 2013) believe that she has been posted to the Vietnamese embassy in Maputo. This could not be independently confirmed.
30. The alien conspiracy theory was born out of the findings of the US Senate’s Kefauver Committee, which identified organized crime with the mafia or mafia-like groups (foreigners), which were hierarchically organized and threatened the integrity of local government, infiltrated legitimate business and subverted the integrity of a free society.
31. Beare postulates that this narrative is also visible in the international conceptualization of organized crime as per the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime (United Nations General Assembly Citation15 November Citation2000). According to her, the convention ‘reproduces a global hegemonic rhetoric and countermeasures that depend on the public’s perception of a growing threat of transnational crime that originates from countries foreign to the ‘developed’ metropolis, led by organized ‘mafia’-like networks and gangsters who are seen to threaten the peace and security of the core capitalist nations, and requiring a state response of strict border and immigration controls’ (Beare Citation2003, p. XVIII).