“Navara”, the codename used by Simon Ernesto Valoi, first appeared in our crosshairs in 2013 when we were researching rogue South African trophy hunters directly involved in rhino poaching and trafficking in the Kruger National Park. The article Rhino trafficking: Down the rabbit hole at Kruger did not mention Navara, but intelligence agents we spoke to did. Oxpeckers journalists kept pecking away at Navara over the years. As one of the kingpins of cross-border trade in rhino horns, he was a mastermind of operations and a recruiter of young men sent on poaching missions into Kruger - where at least 3,934 rhinos were killed between 2014 and 2024, according to data compiled by our PoachTracker map.