Killing for Profit: Exposing the Illegal Rhino Horn Trade (8 page)

Lukman offers to give them the ‘grand tour’ of his home. He ushers them into the spare bedroom, which doubles as an office. On the wall hangs a map of Zimbabwe and a series of drawings of soldiers and warriors. There is a shortwave radio on the table. Moulton worries that it may pick up the wire. It would be a disaster if their voices suddenly come echoing back at them through the speakers.

Then Lukman does it again. Without warning, he stops talking, turns on his heel and walks away. They hear him return moments later. There is a pistol in his hand. It’s a CZ 75, a semi-automatic 9mm Parabellum made in Czechoslovakia, and it is pointed right at them. The pucker-factor kicks in all over again. But Lukman’s just showing off his stuff. There’s no need to worry. They clinch the deal. Two thousand dollars for an AK. Clifford orders five more. He isn’t interested in the CZ.

‘I’ve just sold you a totally illegal weapon,’ Lukman confides.

18 July 1988

Moulton’s phone rings. He depresses the record button of a cassette player on his desk. There’s a click and the reels begin to turn. It’s Lukman. The wire gets it all. Lukman has a deep, booming voice that is beautiful to tape. ‘He’s in El Salvador. For the first time since he declared the subject taboo, he wants to talk about rhino horn. Marius Meiring, he says, has managed to get his hands on an ‘unlimited supply’ of horn. ‘Marius was just in Angola and inspected the product, and there’s plenty available,’ Lukman says.

Somewhere on the South West African–Angolan border is a pit containing between forty and a hundred horns. The location is known to a group of San Bushmen, whose leader is apparently the uncle of an army tracker. Meiring
has already secured one horn weighing in at about 3.6 kilograms and is storing it at his home for a rainy day.

Moulton tells Lukman that he has Asian clients in New York who are prepared to pay $58 000 for the horn in Meiring’s garage, no questions asked. The men cut a deal. Moulton will give Lukman $30 000, which he will pay over to Meiring for the horn. The $28 000 profit will be split two ways, with Lukman getting $10 000 and Moulton $18 000.

At first Pat Meiring is hesitant, asking Lukman how well he knows ‘Rick’ and if he trusts him. ‘This is much bigger than the others,’ she says. Lukman allays her fears.

Much later, Lukman is told to collect a package in Chicago. The courier is an SADF sergeant major, Waldemar Schutte, who is set to take part in a skydiving competition in Illinois. Federal agents, careful not to be spotted, shadow Lukman’s every move as he flies to O’Hare Airport. There, he almost loses his nerve when he sees a heavy-set man matching Schutte’s description being led away in handcuffs by customs officials. But the man had been aboard a flight from Brussels. Schutte is due from London.

When Schutte arrives, he clears customs without a hitch. The horn is transferred to Lukman’s carry-on luggage. An envelope stuffed with $1 800, the courier fee, changes hands and Schutte disappears into the throng. Lukman heads back to Connecticut. As his bag passes through the baggage scanner, a security guard hits the stop button and examines the flickering image on his screen. ‘Sir, what’s in your bag?’ he asks. Lukman goes cold. He can hear the blood pounding in his ears. His hands itch. ‘It’s buffalo horn,’ he blurts out, hopefully. ‘Mooo!’ The guard laughs and lets him pass. Fear gives way to elation. There is a rush of adrenaline, not unlike a naughty schoolboy who has got away with mischief. ‘I’ve done it!’

In the safety of his apartment, Lukman shows Moulton the horn. It’s magnificent, curved and heavy. The horn’s been stored long enough in the heat to dry out, so the telltale stench of rot from the base where it was hacked off is barely discernible. But Moulton won’t be able to take possession of it
just yet. First, Lukman has to go to South West Africa to deliver Meiring’s $30 000 to him. He’s arranged for a friend, Russell D. Beveridge Jnr, to keep the horn while he’s away.

10 August 1988

Moulton drives Lukman to the airport for the connecting flight to JFK International Airport in New York City. On previous occasions they’d taken a left to the highway. Today, Lukman tells him to turn right. Moulton can’t understand why, but he does so anyway. He glances in the rear-view mirror. The surveillance team should be behind them. But the streets are clear. Either they’re doing the greatest job ever or he’s going blind, Moulton thinks. Lukman wants to get some aspirin, so they turn off to find a pharmacy. ‘Turn here, turn here, turn here, turn here,’ Lukman directs him. They make four right-hand turns and drive slowly past a cluster of shops. There’s no pharmacy. Lukman gives up his quest. ‘Let’s get going,’ he tells Moulton.

Moulton later finds out that the surveillance team had decided to grab an early lunch at a Roy Rogers around the corner from Lukman’s condo. They’d expected him and Moulton to follow their usual route, turning left past the restaurant. By the time they realised they’d lost their quarry, it was too late.

One follow-car had been cruising the streets and picked up Moulton and Lukman as they hit the road. But he was ATF and the guys stuffing their faces were customs. They used different radio frequencies and there was no way to call them in. The four right-turns unnerved the ATF agent. Internationally, that was the accepted signal if an undercover operative in a moving vehicle was in trouble. Moulton didn’t know that, but fortunately the ATF agent held back.

Lukman is excited about his trip. He chatters away to ‘Rick’ as they walk through the airport. Moulton spies a young woman in customs uniform walking towards them. She’s engrossed in a sheaf of papers. He knows her well. Lukman prods him in the ribs. ‘That’s the enemy,’ he says with a wink, gesturing at the woman. ‘Oh crap,’ Moulton thinks. ‘If she sees me, she’ll probably come over and give me a big hug. My cover will be blown.’ But luck is at hand. The woman turns into an office, her eyes never leaving the documents in her hand.

Hours later Lukman is winging his way over the Atlantic to Jan Smuts Airport in Johannesburg. From there, he’ll catch a flight to Windhoek and Marius. Stashed in his luggage is $30 000 in cash that had been raised by Rick and his business associates. This is going to be a very profitable relationship. Marius will be happy.

Lukman has done his best to conceal the cash. Normally, anything over $10 000 has to be declared, but at JFK International, Lukman had signed a customs form stating that he was only carrying $2 000. The pencil-pushing losers would never find out. What Lukman doesn’t know is that the airline officials who greeted him as he boarded the aircraft and asked if he’d filled in his declaration form were all undercover customs agents.

On his arrival in South West Africa, Marius and Pat welcome Lukman into their home as if he were the prodigal son. Over beers and
braaivleis
, he learns that the horns are hidden near Rundu, a dusty border town on the South West African–Angolan border. About 250 kilometres to its east lies Jamba, UNITA’s headquarters, a reed-thatched rebel playground built with the help of the South Africans. The name means elephant. Marius claims that a group of soldiers went into Angola to bring out the horn.

Lukman’s next stop is Zimbabwe. There he visits his ‘old friend’ Ian Smith, the sharp-tongued former Rhodesian prime minister, who had retired from politics the previous year. Lukman gives Smith a letter from a mutual buddy whose son is RENAMO’s Washington representative. Lukman will later claim to know nothing about the contents of the letter.

‘I didn’t want to know. I just know Smith didn’t trust his phones or mail because he lived next door to the Cuban Embassy, which could hear him taking a piss.’ The Cubans had set up shop shortly after Smith grudgingly relinquished power to the black majority in 1979. Smith often used the embassy sign as a direction marker for visitors. ‘At least they’re good for something,’ he would say bitterly.

Twelve days after setting foot on African soil, Lukman returns home. In a box on the aircraft is a leopard skin. It has been carefully folded inside a zebra hide to camouflage it from the beady eyes of customs officials. Smith, he tells Moulton, gave it to him to smuggle out of the country. He needs cash to attend a Rhodesian Veterans’ Association meeting in Las Vegas, and Lukman
has been entrusted with selling it. As a ruse to further distract customs agents from the contraband, Lukman is also carrying zebra meat. As expected, they confiscate that, but miss the leopard skin. Lukman sells the rug to Moulton and gives Smith $1 000.

On 25 August, Moulton receives a package in the mail. The postmark is Windhoek. Inside are a buffalo-hide briefcase and a note. ‘This is just a small token of our appreciation for your help in this last “deal”, and we hope this is the start of a long and happy (and also profitable) relationship …’ It is addressed to ‘Rick’, and signed John, Marius and Pat.

Rick’s clients now want twenty-five kilograms of horn. That works out to about eight horns. Lukman feverishly sets about raising funds for the venture. His girlfriend and two other Connecticut businessmen are persuaded to put up the cash. Then, in October, Lukman returns to Windhoek. He calls Moulton a few days later and says he has managed to get his hands on the requisite amount of horn. Then he changes his tune, claiming that things are too hot because of the Border War and the horns are ‘across the river’, in Angola; an apparent reference to the Okavango River, which flows past Rundu. His efforts to secure the horns have been unsuccessful. Finally, Lukman admits to Moulton that he only has a set of two horns and will be back in the States on 2 November.

The minute Lukman’s aircraft touches down and he enters JFK International, federal agents are on his tail. They shadow him as he boards the connecting flight for the hour-long hop to Bradley Airport in Connecticut. There he collects his luggage, including a large box containing the rhino horn and some heavy wood carvings. Moulton and Lukman’s girlfriend, Mary Ann McAllister are there to meet him. A surveillance van is parked near McAllister’s car, cameras rolling behind tinted windows. The trio opens the trunk of the car and then loads the luggage. Lukman can’t resist showing Moulton his prize. He unpacks the rhino horn. Lukman and McAllister are all smiles.

Moulton gives a signal, then rapidly turns on his heel and walks away into the fog and rain outside. Two cars screech to a halt. Someone shouts: ‘Federal agents! You’re under arrest.’ Lukman is rooted to the spot. In a bar near the airport, Moulton later watches the evening news. He can’t help but
laugh. A CBS news crew had got wind of the Lukman case and had been allowed to film the take-down. He sees himself on the screen for a few seconds. His face has been fuzzed out, as agreed, to protect his identity. For a long a time afterwards, agents rib him and call him ‘Electric Head’. They like to make fun of each other. It keeps you from getting too big for your britches.

Later, when agents tear through Lukman’s luggage, they find a vinyl record he had brought back from his travels. The single is titled, ‘Run Rhino Run’.

Guns & bullets & daggers & knives
Money & blood & horns & lies

Run rhino run …
Run away from the bullet & the gun
Run away with the wind
Run away from the dagger & the knife

Men with guns at sunset, with a thousand bullets, maybe more
The animal runs defencelessly, fear & death once more
Something breaks the silence, yes a bullet rips the air
The animal lies dying, does anybody care?

A day later, US prosecutors call a press conference. Soon the story is buzzing on the wires to newsrooms across the United States and South Africa.

7 November 1988

Dean Golembeski

Hartford, Conn (AP) – An international smuggling ring that relied on South African soldiers to kill endangered rhinoceroses in Angola has been cracked by US undercover agents with the indictments or arrests of six people …

In addition to smuggling black and white rhinoceros horn into the United States, the scheme also involved the illegal importation of seven AK-47 machine guns, cheetah skins and leopard skins, including one
owned by former Rhodesian Prime Minister Ian Smith, authorities said.

Three Connecticut residents were arrested and the US government was seeking the extradition of three South Africans, including an army sergeant major in a parachute unit, who smuggled a rhinoceros horn into this country while attending a sky-diving event.

More arrests were possible from the undercover investigation that began in February, said US Attorney Stanley A. Twardy Jnr as he announced the arrests during a news conference.

Twardy said he had no idea how long the smugglers had been in business, nor was he able to say how many others did business with the group.

But those charged in the scheme indicated they had enough rhino horns to earn hundreds of thousands of dollars.

‘This is something that is unique, at least in my experience,’ Twardy said.

Events move quickly. There are fiery exchanges on diplomatic channels between Washington and Pretoria. The FBI, working with the state and justice departments, is negotiating with the South African authorities for the immediate extradition of Marius and Pat Meiring, along with Schutte. It’s not going well. The South Africans are, as can be expected, enraged, defensive and obstructive. Perhaps
too
defensive.