More than 100 rhino horns which were to be used to trap smugglers have gone missing, reports Ann Eveleth
MORE than 100 rhino horns purchased by a controversial group of British special forces officers from the Natal Parks Board in the late 1980s, supposedly for a “sting” operation to trap smugglers, have gone missing and cannot be accounted for.
The World Wide Fund for Nature’s South Africa representative, John Hanks, told the Kumleban Commission of Inquiry in Durban last week he did not know what happened to between 110 and 178 rhino horns purchased for the operation from the Natal Parks Board (NPB) and the Namibian Department of Nature Conservation (NDNC) between 1988 and 1989.
Hanks is the man who approved the deployment of British Special Air Services agents, with funds provided by Prince Bernhard of the Netherlands, to South Africa so that they could run a covert anti-poaching programme known as Operation Lock.
While he was working in Switzerland as the WWF’s Southern Africa representative in 1987, Hanks recruited the services of a group of former SAS officers in a company called Kilo Alpha Services — led by Sir David Stirling and Colonel Ian Crooke — to trap the “middlemen” responsible for the illegal trade decimating the Southern African black rhino population.
He told the commission, after being subpoeaned to give evidence, that he had initiated Operation Lock in his personal capacity on behalf of the Netherlands’ Prince Bernhard, who funded the operation, along with
Hanks confirmed that R250 000 had been paid to the NPB for the purchase of 50 rhino horns, and at least R150 000 had been paid to the NDNC before delivery of a shipment of Namibian horns. The NDNC had asked for R250 000 for 100 horns, but it was unclear whether 60 or 100 horns had eventually been purchased.
Commission chairman Judge Mark Kumleben said one of the criticisms of Operation Lock was that it “did not or might not have used this horn for the legitimate objectives of the operation”.
Hanks suggested an audit into alleged financial irregularities carried out by Coopers Deloitte of London, at the initiation of Prince Bernhard, may have audited the horn involved. The commission said this did not happen.
Hanks said: “I can’t account for it, but I seem to recall that I have subsequently seen that all the horns could be accounted for.”
He suggested it was in another report which had not been handed to the commission. At the time of going to press, however, no such report had been handed in.
The death of Stirling in 1990 and the subsequent paralysis of Crooke means that two key players are unable to testify before the commission.
Hanks also denied earlier reports that Operation Lock had assisted South African Military Intelligence (MI) objectives by agreeing to steer clear of South African Defence Force, Unita and Renamo operatives involved in smuggling networks.
Rejecting a claim that Operation Lock had undertaken to assist these operations in any way, Hanks said: “Absolutely not. I would not have (countenanced) that because the instructions to the team were to investigate the illegal trade at all levels, with no holds barred at all. We certainly wouldn’t have agreed to this.”
The Commission also heard testimony form SAP Endangered Species Protection Unit officer Lieutenant-Colonel Piet Lategan, who had agreed to assist Crooke in obtaining rhino horn in order to penetrate the illegal smuggling
Lategan approached NPB head George Hughes and seconded an officer from the SAP Stock Theft Unit to work with the Operation Lock team. Lategan said he cut off co- operation with Operation Lock after learning about the Namibian purchase and realising that “I wasn’t able to check what was happening to the horns.”
Lategan subsequently recovered 16 horns after a raid on the operation’s safe house in Johannesburg.
Commenting on a document from Richards indicating the sale of 98 rhino horns, Lategan said Richards had “worked with (Operation Lock) and he took part in most of their undercover operations … he told me he was an officer at one stage in MI”.
Lategan said Richards and another man, known only as Franke, had a “close link” with former spy Craig Williamson.