Killing for Profit: Exposing the Illegal Rhino Horn Trade (17 page)

Aside from Williamson’s close proximity to the apartheid regime’s intelligence agencies, there is another reason for Crooke to be circumspect. One of Lock’s targets, designated ‘Alpha 2’, is James Anthony White, known as ‘Ant’. White is one of the founding members of Longreach and a close friend of Williamson’s. A notorious former Rhodesian Selous Scout and assassin, he is implicated in at least two failed attempts to kill Joshua Nkomo, the Zimbabwean liberation leader.

He is also accused of being a major ivory smuggler. There are allegations that White ran ivory-smuggling operations while still in the Selous Scouts in what was then Rhodesia. According to Ellis, ‘during the late 1970s, Selous Scouts fighting in the bush had often acquired poached ivory, often from elephants which had trod on land mines … White was widely known as one who had smuggled ivory from Mozambique and Rhodesia and sold it to his contacts in the security forces in South Africa.’

In the late 1980s, White is accused of smuggling tons of Burundian ivory to Mozambique, where he would later buy a sawmill near Beira. In April 1988, both Williamson and White are alleged to have made a failed bid to buy Burundi’s eighty-four-ton ivory stockpile. The London-based sector of the En viron mental Investigation Agency describes White as a major ivory dealer.

White will also become one of Lategan’s informants: ‘He’s the smartest guy thinkable,’ Lategan says. ‘He knew what was going on in Africa with
ivory, and he himself had taken ivory out. With permits and everything. Ant is a very agreeable guy and we worked well with him. He gave us a lot of information.’

In the mid-1990s, De Kock’s predecessor at the Vlakplaas hit squad, Dirk Coetzee, will claim that White was the triggerman who killed Palme. In interviews, White will vehemently deny any involvement, and little evidence will emerge to substantiate the claim.

Soon after Crooke leaves his office, Williamson picks up the phone. He calls Mike Richards, a man later described by Judge Mark Kumleben as having had a ‘chequered and umbrageous career in the underworld of intelligence and security operations’. Richards had previously served under Williamson. Until 1987 he had worked for the Security Branch in the South African Police, where he had been involved in ‘all aspects of surveillance, the gathering of intelligence through informers, sources and technical means’. After his resignation, Richards joined the counter-intelligence directorate of Military Intelligence and, in July 1987, helped establish a front company, Richards & Tyrrel-Glynne, also known as R&TG Consultants International CC.

‘We operate in the private sector. We penetrate undercover agents into commercial areas who [
sic
] are suffering losses due to criminal activities,’ Richards declares in a 1991 affidavit.

R&TG falls under the auspices of another Military Intelligence front company, Pan African Industrial Investment Corporation CC (PAIIC). Central to the close corporation’s activities is the acquisition of ‘specialised technical equipment for the Security Branch and Military Intelligence’. Much of it has to be obtained in contravention of international sanctions on apartheid South Africa. R&TG also assists with the development of ‘technical surveillance systems’ for field operations, the installation of ‘technical equipment during covert operations’ and, as mentioned, the infiltration of spies into businesses that experience losses due to ‘internal criminal activity’.

Williamson tells Richards that he has ‘been approached by an ex-colonel who had commanded the British Special Air services regarding helping
them with an investigation concerning the World Wildlife Trust’. He says he told Crooke he would be unable to assist, but could strongly recommend someone who would be capable of ‘handling all their needs’. He is ‘worried about a possible British intelligence link with Mr Crooke and his fellow operatives’, and suggests that Richards pass the information on to his Military Intelligence handler.

The handler is dismissive, but leaves the decision of whether or not to infiltrate the group up to Richards, provided it doesn’t affect other operations. Richards places another call, this time to Lieutenant Colonel André Beukes at the security police. He’s more receptive and has some knowledge of Crooke and his men.

There is ‘reasonable cause for concern’, he says, adding that another intelligence agency has ‘already expressed their dissatisfaction at the presence of Crooke’s team’. Left unspoken is the very real concern that Lock could stumble on evidence of the SADF’s involvement in ivory and rhino horn smuggling. A decision is taken: Richards and his partner, Leon Falck, will ‘penetrate the British group’ and dig up any information they can get on their finances, structure, countries of operation and the names of their ‘principal controllers in London’.

To do this, they need false papers and new identities. Richards adopts the name Harold Michael Stephens. Falck assumes that of John Leonard Bailey. Richards sets about establishing a ‘legend or background history’ for Stephens. He opens bank accounts in the name of an entity called HMS Trading and obtains a variety of credit cards in Stephens’s name.

According to a statement given by Richards, which was submitted to the Kumleben Commission, ‘Various other financial transactions [are] later concluded by HMS for the purpose of having a credit history, such as a vehicle lease with Wesbank, home loan account with First National Bank [and] a hire purchase agreement with Union Bank.’

Richards quickly gains the Lock team’s trust. He arranges false passports and driver’s licences for Marafono and Nish Bruce. According to Marafono, a decision is taken that ‘since I look like a Malay, and I could speak Malay … my background was that I was to be a Malay from Woodstock … in Cape Town. That was my cover.’

In the weeks and months that follow, Richards amasses a wealth of data about their plans and strategies. The Brits, he finds, are setting up ‘their own black market system’ and have established links with military, intelligence and government officials in a host of southern African countries. In the course of their investigations, they have also obtained information about arms smuggling, drug dealing and the ‘movement of fugitives plus criminals, not excluding terrorists’. This intelligence will be ‘traded with the South African authorities’. The South African’s intentions for Lock are spelt out in a document dated 21 August 1989, marked confidential and headed: ‘World Wild-Life Project’. Later dubbed ‘Document Q’, it appears to be written by someone with an intimate knowledge of Lock’s activities; in all likelihood, by Richards. It offers an appraisal of Lock’s capabilities and command structure, and identifies key problems and advantages of the operation which could be manipulated to the benefit of apartheid’s security structures.

It notes that Lock’s operations are similar to those ‘needed for the collection and collation of intelligence directly related to the activities of anti– South African countries, forces and people’. Crooke’s men – ‘with their foreign backgrounds, passports and, so to speak, legitimate activities’ – have a level of credibility to operate in African countries.

‘If tasked correctly, [they] could bring back valuable information which could be put to good use by the necessary South African information-collecting departments.’ Crooke, it adds, has offered to co-operate in the ‘monitoring of anti-South African bodies which are situated overseas’.

The Lock team also apparently agrees to turn a blind eye to SADF involvement in smuggling. ‘It is known that various SADF operations make use of smugglers and smugglers’ routes to channel information from neighbouring states back to the RSA,’ the report reads. It continues:

This point is recognised by the investigation team and at the beginning of the operation in February 1989 a decision was taken to avoid any possible contact with SADF personnel … A … problem exists whereby information may be received of dealers within the rhino horn and ivory trade and upon investigation it is found that these dealers are actually permanent force SADF members …

Another problem which was recognised at the beginning was the activities of South African-backed RENAMO and UNITA, which have large-scale rhino horn, ivory and other endangered species smuggling routes in operation. Once again, a decision was taken to avoid possible confrontation in this area as far as possible.

The last and most spoken-about problem was the possibility of giving South Africa bad international publicity if the media were to take the information and put it across to the world that the South African government is tolerating the smuggling of endangered species and wild-life products as part of the destabilisation process of its neighbouring states. This point has received much attention at the liaison and command level and an early decision was taken to closely co-ordinate all investigation actions with the South African authorities to, as far as possible, avoid such a repercussion, which would have a serious detrimental effect, not only on the host country, being South Africa, but also on the British subjects involved in this operation.

By mid-1989, Lategan is growing increasingly agitated. Crooke has kept him in the dark about the rhino horn sourced from Namibia and has failed to account for the horn that Lategan arranged for them. ‘As far as I was concerned, the money they obtained [from rhino horn deals] was never declared to me … [M]y concern was mostly what was happening to the rhino horn, and there was no positive follow-up after illegal or undercover operations. It simply disappeared somewhere.’

Crooke and his men, he later tells the Kumleben Commission, ‘had all sorts of weird ideas of how to deal with people. They just thought that a “shoot-to-kill” policy would also work and they came [up] with various ideas … which I had to veto and say, “We won’t take part in that operation. It can’t work like that,” because as ex-soldiers they wanted to go with the maximum force policy and we differed on that one’.

Those ‘weird ideas’ include murder. Assassination is a relatively simple alternative to the arduous task of gathering hard evidence and entrapping
and arresting a suspect. And killing is something that Crooke and his men do well. In his statement, Richards says Lock identified ‘certain key players for determination of possible assassination’. Interviewed at his home in Centurion in February 2012, Lategan says, ‘They wanted to take people out. As police, we can’t go around behaving like Rambo. We investigate a crime, make arrests and take it to court. Just because someone is said to be part of a syndicate, we can’t go and kill them and say the syndicate is now finished.’

Lock’s primary target for ‘elimination’ is Hans Beck, the German-born ivory trader code-named ‘Hotel 2’. Beck is based in Francistown in Botswana. He had been the subject of a 1988 investigation by Potgieter and the
Sunday Times
after his live-in lover, a supposedly ‘striking platinum blonde’, had chosen to ‘reveal everything she knew about the multimillion-dollar smuggling racket’ to the newspaper. On a copy of the Operation Lock target list that I obtained, someone has written the word “Assassinate’ next to Beck’s name.

In his 1995 book
Contraband: South Africa and the International Trade in Ivory and Rhino Horn
, Potgieter claims he was present, along with Lategan, at Lock strategy meetings where Beck’s ‘murder’ was discussed on ‘numerous occasions’. Initial plans to kill Beck in his Francistown home are scotched after months of planning because of concerns that the South African government could be politically embarrassed. Another plan is to lure Beck to a farm near Rustenburg in the north-western Transvaal with an ivory deal as the bait. He will then be murdered and his corpse dumped across the border in Swaziland. A dry run is carried out but, at the last moment, the hit is called off.