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Tiny plants in plastic pots, each carefully labeled, cram a South African greenhouse. Each is the evidence of at least one crime. These are strange plants without typical stems or leaves. Some look like greenish thumb-tips, others like grapes or rounded stones. Some sprout small, bright flowers. Few are more than an inch tall. I've agreed not to disclose this location because the plants, confiscated from poachers and smugglers, are valuable and could be re-stolen by the same criminal networks that first dug them from their natural habitats to traffic overseas.

Two men who were found with abalone worth over R6,5 million in Welgemoed have been slapped with hefty fines. The two Chinese nationals, Chaoyuan He (28) and Jie Jun Liang (27), entered into a plea agreement with the state last Monday 15 April at the Khayelitsha Priority Court. This follows a lengthy investigation which started in October 2021 when members of the Hawks’ Serious Organised Crime Investigation team based in Bellville, Crime Intelligence Counter Narcotics and Gangs Western Cape as well as Department of Forestry, Fishery and the Environment searched a premises in…

"We provide free air support for the reserves up here," explains Rob over the headphones. "The more we’re doing surveillance up in the air, the safer the rhino below. In some cases, our surveillance has seen a 97 per cent drop in rhino poaching." Rob scans the bush constantly and, when he spots two waterbuck at a canter, he swoops down to take a closer look.