22 July 2011
I call William. The voice on the phone sounds like it has been steeped in a vat of whisky. Did he and his wife supply Thai strippers to hunt rhinos? I ask. There is a long pause.
‘Well, you got me,’ he says. Another pause. ‘It’s a serious allegation and I know everything about it … My wife did organise women [for them], which is true, but they said they were booking the girls to go with them weekends, you know. They didn’t say they were going to take them for rhino hunting.’
He’s getting angry. Johnny Olivier, he says, ‘is one of the kingpins of the whole fucking set-up. He is the guy who took the girls, took their passports and actually made the permits for the women. And now he is trying to take the blame from him and serve it on somebody else.’
He denies the women are strippers or prostitutes, a claim that seems at odds with his earlier statement that the girls had been ‘booked’. ‘It was some of my wife’s friends, and their husbands and boyfriends didn’t even know about it,’ William continues. ‘They just told them they were taking them sightseeing for a weekend and they’d give them R5 000 each. When the women came back they said they had been convinced to pose for pictures with the rhinos. They didn’t do any shooting.
‘When I realised what was going on, I told my wife: “You must fucking stop this kak and leave these fucking people alone or you’ll pick up kak.”’ He claims he reported the matter to the police. ‘In October 2010, when this thing started, I reported it to the cops. I can understand Thai and I smelt something was wrong. The cops did fokol.’
After my meeting with Johnny at the Michelangelo Towers, I drive to a shopping mall in Midrand, halfway between Johannesburg and Pretoria. William is waiting for me. Two of the ‘hunters’ want to talk. Outside an Indian restaurant, half a dozen Thai women and their South African husbands and boyfriends are crowded around a table snacking on poppadoms and sambals. William is a bear of a man. He dwarfs his wife, Mau, and the other Thais at the table. One of the hangers-on, a man named Jones, takes the lead in the discussion. They’re pissed off with Johnny, he tells me.
‘The women,’ he says, ‘played cards with William’s wife every weekend.’ She was also friends with Peter, Johnny and Chai. ‘Peter said they had bought a moerse share in a farm in Botswana and wanted to do something in tourism for Thai people. They’d fly them in to come and look at the animals. But they said they needed Thais to entertain the tourists, make food for them; all those nice things. They said they’d pay the girls R5 000 each for every tour group that came in. Everyone thought it was a great idea. Even my wife wanted to do it,’ Jones says.
‘They said that because the farm was in Botswana, the women needed to give them copies of their passports so that their visas could be done. When they talked about permits, we thought it was to go over the border. I told my wife it sounds like a smart idea. “You should apply, get your permit sorted and you can also go,” I told her.
‘It was all about tourism for Thai people. There was nothing about prostitution or rhinos.’
Jones says the first group left in October 2010. A second group followed them a few weeks later. ‘Then the girls came back with these photos of rhinos and horns and all those lekker things.’
William, who has been listening intently to the conversation, interjects. ‘When I saw those pictures, I told Mau I’d kick her dead if she ever sends people again. And I said I don’t want those people [the men from Xaysavang] at my place again, because I’d seen what was going on. Those trophies never went to the girls.
‘Now I’m hearing my wife and I are involved in human trafficking. It’s a kak story. Six years ago, I managed a club above Teazers in Midrand. And Johnny probably thought I was still involved with those things. The so-called prostitutes he mentions in his statement always come to my house on Saturdays to sit and play cards with my wife and make Thai food.’
As an afterthought, he adds: ‘I always eat out. I don’t eat what they make. The girls knew nothing about hunting permits. I also didn’t know. I didn’t even know about the copies and everything.’
Jones continues: ‘William said to me these guys are busy with fucking smuggling. Just stay out of it.’
William calls one of the Thai women closer. Her nickname is Wi, she says hesitantly. She won’t tell me her real name and says she fears reprisals from the Thai authorities. She has reason to be afraid. Her face appears in several photographs the SARS investigators lifted from Chai’s laptop. In one she poses nonchalantly with a rifle next to the carcass of a rhino. She’s wearing jeans, a cap and a T-shirt with an image of a unicorn rearing up. The rifle takes her to her shoulder. She grins at the camera. In others, Steyl stands behind her, his hands on her shoulders.
William’s wife moves closer, as does another woman, called Nit, who acts as translator. ‘Johnny and Peter tell me we going to take you on holiday to visit farm and go see animal. I never see big farm before.’ She only heard the shots, she says. Then she was driven to where the rhino had fallen. ‘I see the rhino but I don’t know if it is dead or alive. It was the first time I see a real rhino. Before, only on TV in Thailand.’
She was handed the rifle and told to go and stand next to the animal. She remembers the rifle being heavy and difficult to hold. ‘I felt sad,’ she says. ‘Why they kill them, why they kill such a big animal?’ But did she smile in the pictures, I ask. She giggles. ‘When you take photo, you have to smile,’ she answers.
Another woman is ushered forward. She says her name is Wan. ‘It was very sad,’ she says of the killing. ‘I cried. I don’t agree with what they did. I think it was wrong to shoot such a big animal.’
Like Wi, she claims she never fired a shot. ‘They make me stand there. I carry rifle on my back. It was very heavy. I feel sorry for rhino.’
A phone rings. I can hear William speaking to someone about Johnny. ‘Die fokken doos. Ek wil hom dood donder. (The fucking cunt. I want to beat him to death).’ Both Wi and Wan confirm being paid R5 000 each by Johnny. But they deny they’re prostitutes or strippers.
‘That not true,’ Wi says. ‘Why they tell story like that? Not all Thai lady that come to work here is like that. I’m very angry. The boyfriends are also not happy.’
As I prepare to leave, William leans over. ‘Johnny and Peter did go and get whores. They booked whores in clubs and then they held parties with them and convinced them to go with them.’
The video runs to 25 minutes and 39 seconds. I watch it again and again, looking and listening for details. Play. Pause. Fast forward. Pause. Rewind. There’s Chai, grinning and giving a thumbs-up after he adjusts the camera on Marnus’s head; the boot tracks in the dust, a black fence line, the whispered words and hand signals, the way they move – Claassens expertly rolling his feet to mute the sound of his boots on the ground; the hands that hold the rifles; the flashes of colour from the men’s shirts; the spacing of the shots; the rhino’s penetrating cries.
But it is the Thais I watch most closely: Chai in a black windbreaker, a white, striped shirt and jeans, and the other man – the silent shadow trailing Marnus. Hunting records identify him as Nimit Wongprajan of 166 Moo 2, Vunghenrat Village, Khon Kaen, Thailand, passport number R737660. Wongprajan’s nickname is Pisong. He’s wearing jeans, white tennis shoes and a charcoal-coloured jacket. A cap is pulled low over his eyes.
18.32: Steyl gestures to Nimit to stay down.
18.48: Harry and Steyl, slightly crouched over, leave the tracker and Nimit behind them as they inch forward. Nimit is unarmed.
20.30: Steyl raises, then lowers, a rifle a number of times.
20.58: Steyl fires a shot.
23.57: The rhino lies dying under the tree. Marnus takes off the GoPro and hooks it on his belt. The camera focuses on Nimit. He’s standing in the background, hands empty at his sides.
The bureaucratic details of the hunt are faithfully recorded, the weight of the animal’s horns – four kilograms – the unique numbers of the microchips inserted into them an
d, most importantly, the permit – number O 21980 – issued to Nimit Wongprajan.
But the footage doesn’t show Nimit firing a single shot.
Other details later slip into place. Nimit’s brother, Nikorn Wongprajan, is an agriculture officer in the flora department at Bangkok’s Suvarnabhumi Airport. Nikorn’s girlfriend, Arunee Senam, works for a cargo-handling company, Bangkok Flight Services, and according to her Facebook page, is also employed by a logistics firm. Hunting records show that hunting permits were issued to both Nikorn and Arunee for rhinos that were shot at Aurora around the time of Nimit’s hunt.
The paper trail from Nimit’s ‘hunt’ – as with most of the others – leads from Steyl to Chai and back again.
In May 2011, Steyl invoices Nimit for R208 000 or $32 000 for the horns. The invoice appears to have been emailed to Chai. Four days later, the money is transferred from a Bangkok bank account held in Chumlong (Chai) Lemtongthai’s name to an account at the Bank of Athens in Johannesburg’s Bedford Centre.
The beneficiary is Steyl Game CC.
10
Juju and the ‘Poacher’
Mike Peega was one of the elite in a military regiment that prides itself on the high failure rate of its selection course. Only about 30 per cent of the candidates survive the bone-crushing, soul-sapping tests of character that Special Forces operators call the ‘ultimate challenge’. Most crack under the strain. Some have died. The entry test is gruelling enough: forty push-ups without breaking rhythm, sixty-seven sit-ups in two minutes, a five-kilometre run in twenty-four minutes, and forty six-metre ‘shuttle runs’ in ninety-five seconds.
There is also a battery of psychological and aptitude tests. A hellish six-week pre-selection phase follows in which the candidates are pushed to breaking point six-and-a-half days a week and up to twenty hours a day. The final selection lasts a week and simulates ‘the most extreme physically and mentally stressful conditions that could ever possibly be experienced by a human being’. No sleep, no rest, no food. Any infraction or sign of aggression is an instant cause for disqualification.
Peega survived all that and more over the next fifty-one weeks of training. He was sent to 5 Special Forces Regiment in Phalaborwa, a Lowveld town bordering the Kruger National Park, where summer temperatures easily peak at 47 °C. He gained experience in intelligence gathering, as well as urban and rural reconnaissance.
Then, in March 2007, he applied to join the Customs Border Control Unit (CBCU), a division of SARS. A SARS official who had also served in Special Forces vouched for him, and Peega was hired. He signed a secrecy clause and was assigned to the Special Projects Unit, an investigative division within SARS that would later be renamed, euphemistically, the National Research Group (NRG). Its focus was on South Africa’s burgeoning ‘illicit economy’ – smuggling and trafficking in drugs, abalone, cars, cigarettes, counterfeit goods, rhino horn and ivory – as well as money-laundering and tax-evasion schemes.
Less than two years later, in December 2008, Peega’s career would come to a shattering end. In hindsight, perhaps it was to be expected. But nobody could ever have predicted the nature of his disgrace or that it would propel him to the heart of a political scandal involving South Africa’s most controversial politician, Julius Malema.
Christmas Eve 2008
Near midnight, on a dark road outside Vaalwater in Limpopo province, Captain Herman Lubbe is looking for poachers. He is in an unmarked police car and driving fast. Behind him, the town’s lights fade into the blackness until they’re only a muddy, orange glow. It has been a long day and it promises to be an even longer night.
Lubbe, a veteran of the police’s Stock Theft Unit, has received a tip-off that a syndicate he’s been tracking is on the hunt. The men, he’s been told, are in a red Toyota Corolla, registration HDL814NW, and they’re driving in the direction of Melkrivier, fifty kilometres north-east of Vaalwater. It will take him until dawn to find them.
At 5 a.m. on Christmas Day, he spots the Toyota leaving Melkrivier. It’s maroon, not red, he notes. And the registration begins with HLD, not HDL. There is only one occupant. Lubbe hangs back and trails the vehicle. He suspects the man behind the wheel is the getaway driver and that the rest of the gang has been dropped off at a game farm to look for rhino. The driver will probably wait in Vaalwater until they need him. A police informant is tasked with keeping an eye on the vehicle.
Lubbe’s instincts prove to be right. At 11 a.m., the driver takes off. He’s in a hurry. Lubbe takes up a position at the entrance to Leseding Township on the Vaalwater/Melkrivier road. The car’s description and its registration number are radioed to police units deployed to watch the main access routes around Vaalwater. Lubbe is in luck. The car drives right past him and turns into Leseding. There are four occupants. He bides his time.
A short while later, Lubbe sees the car leaving the township. This time, there are only two occupants. The vehicle is heading in the direction of Bulgerivier. Lubbe radioes ahead: ‘Pull them over,’ he says.
When he gets there, the Toyota is at the side of the road. The doors are open. A policeman is guarding a suspect. The other occupant, Lubbe hears, high-tailed it the second the car came to a halt. He is barefoot, wearing a blue T-shirt and camo shorts. He won’t get far. Lubbe carries out a cursory search of the car. Near the driver’s seat, he finds a cellphone and a pair of tennis shoes. In the back is a loaf of bread, three bottles of still water and a two-litre Fanta Orange. He opens the boot.
Inside is a large axe and a .303 hunting rifle fitted with a Bushnell scope. A live round is in the chamber and ten more are in a magazine. There are five soft-nosed .303 rounds, designed to expand on impact. In hunting parlance, they are used to ‘maximise the wound channel’. The remaining bullets are all sharp-point ammo, although the tip of one has been cut off, presumably to ensure it fragments when it hits the target.
Then there’s the clothing: a camouflage overall and a green windbreaker the suspect says he bought in France, and brown army fatigues, which he claims belongs to the runaway, a man named Washington. Inside the car Lubbe finds a Malawian driver’s licence made out to Washington Phiri Kateka. The suspect hands his wallet to Lubbe. There’s the usual stuff inside: bank cards, a driver’s licence and a bit of change. But there is something else that catches Lubbe’s eye. It’s an access card used by SARS officials. The name on the card reads ‘Michael Peega’.
Lubbe sweats Peega for information, but he denies that he’s a poacher. He works for SARS, he says, but is currently operating undercover for SAN-Parks. His handler is someone called Lumbe, who is based in the Kruger National Park. Lubbe doesn’t believe him. (Later the ‘handler’ is identified as Andrew Lumbe, a senior environmental crime investigator at SANParks. He tells police he knows Peega from Phalaborwa, but is adamant that he is not his handler and that Peega is not a SANParks ‘CI’ – a confidential informant.)
Peega keeps talking. He says that he met Washington in Pretoria and drove with him to Vaalwater, where one of Washington’s friends took them to a game farm to shoot rhinos. But they didn’t find any rhinos and were on their way home when the police pulled them over. Peega says he dropped two men off in Leseding before they left. They have an AK-47 with them. He can show the cops where it is.
Peega leads them to a tin shack in the township: Number 59B. Police storm inside. A woman is home with her baby. Her name is Sarafina Baloi. Next to her, on the ground, is a black tog bag, and inside it an AK-47, two rounds of ammunition, a hand-axe, a black balaclava and an army jacket. There’s also a passport made out in the name of Joshua Elias Baloi. The woman says the bag belongs to Joshua, her brother. Lubbe arrests her and her husband, Joe Mashaba. As they drive away, Sarafina points to a man in the street. ‘There’s Joshua,’ she says. Police confront him. He denies that the bag or the AK belong to him. But his face matches the photograph in the passport. Lubbe takes him in too.
On 26 December, Washington is arrested. He’s still barefoot. He tells Lubbe he’s fr
om Mozambique. His real name is Washington Hlongwane. It is not long before he confesses. He works for a man called Ignatius, he says. He shoots the rhinos, hacks off the horns and Ignatius buys them. Washington says he uses a .303 rifle, which he’s hidden away in Brits near Pretoria. He’ll take the cops there.
12 January 2009
Police officially inform SARS, in writing, about Peega’s arrest. His employers haven’t heard from him in weeks, and he had been on leave when he was apprehended. A day later, Peega makes a confession, one that he later claims was extracted from him through torture. Lubbe laboriously fills in the requisite forms. ‘Michael Peega states further voluntarily …’ In neat black capitals with a cheap plastic pen, Lubbe writes: ‘Who recruited you to be part of the syndicate?’ Then Peega’s answer: ‘Josias recruited me. He asked me to help him shooting rhino. I know Josias from Phalaborwa, where I was a trained as a soldier.’
Gradually the tale unravels. Late in November 2008, ‘Josias’ (whose surname is not mentioned in the confession) meets Peega at Gold Reef City, a casino and theme park in Johannesburg. He introduces him to Washington and another man with the unlikely name of Gogo, which means ‘grandmother’ in Zulu. Their target is the Sable Ranch, a high-security game farm and breeding facility twenty kilometres outside Brits.
It is night when they get there. A poacher’s moon lights their way through the bush. Washington takes the lead. Gogo carries the hunting rifle, a .303. He’s used it before, he says. ‘The ammunition is perfect.’ Peega is wearing his French camouflage. Washington shows them where to go to find their prey. ‘Just wait. The rhino will show up,’ he promises. But the rhino don’t turn up, and at sunrise they blearily make their way home.
A week later, they try once more, again without success. Peega waits in the road for Washington and Gogo. In the distance, he hears a shot. A short while later the two men scramble into the car. They heard the shot too, they say. It wasn’t them.
Killing for Profit: Exposing the Illegal Rhino Horn Trade Page 23