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Members of anti-poaching units are sometimes involved in poaching or trafficking themselves, a latest report shows. This is according to a protection and law-enforcement report released by the Ministry of Environment, Forestry and Tourism last week. Moreover, the report says 83 people have been arrested in connection with poaching and conspiring to poach rhinos and committing other wildlife crimes last year. It states that 39 people were arrested after pre-emptive investigations in 2023, while follow-up investigations related to rhino poaching have led to 44 arrests.

The South African Police Service (SAPS) said in a statement that Letswele was first arrested on December 8, 2022, and later released on bail. This is after Ermelo police received a tip-off about a Toyota double cab carrying rhino horns and firearms. When police stopped the vehicle, Letswele and his co-accused Junior Jorge Chauke, 42, tried to flee, but were quickly caught. A search of the vehicle revealed four rhino horns hidden in the bonnet, valued at R876,000. Despite being released on bail, Letswele continued his illegal activities.

Two suspects appeared in the Bronkhorstspruit Magistrate's Court in Gauteng on charges of possession of endangered species. This follows the arrest of two suspects, aged 43 and 45, on Friday, June 28. The provincial police spokesperson Captain Tintswalo Sibeko said an operation was conducted by the Cullinan Stock Theft and Endangered Species (STES) Unit successfully dismantled the endangered species trafficking operation.

Officials said up to eight elephants had been killed and there is a likelihood the incidents happened in the nearby parks. Elephant tusks fetch a fortune in the black market as a surge in demand for ivory in the East continues to fuel the illicit trade in elephant tusks, especially from Africa.

On June 3, a man was arrested at the Bangui Mpoko Airport in the Central African Republic (CAR) for illegal transport of ivory. This is the second case of ivory smuggling in Bangui in the span of just one week. The arrested man is a Central African Citizen who didn’t have any identity document with him despite his intention to travel abroad. The police confiscated several suitcases filled to the brim with ivory from this Central African citizen.

There was barely a dry eye in the Kwale courtroom last Monday afternoon, June 10th, 2024, when Augustine Odwori Malingo and Nancy Akoth Owino were sentenced by Principal Magistrate Lillian Lewa. They had been found guilty of possession of wildlife trophies that included 4 ivory tusk pieces weighing 500 grammes and 1 hippo tooth weighing a similar amount from their 2019 arrest.

On May 31, 2024, the Special Court of Libreville will open a correctional hearing to try several individuals involved in an international ivory trafficking network connecting Gabon, Cameroon, and Nigeria. This complex case highlights the challenges of fighting poaching in Central Africa.

Namibia's over-burdened criminal justice system is struggling to keep up with rhino-poaching court cases, some of them delayed by up to six years. Is a special wildlife crime court the answer? 

There are worrying signs that Namibia's legendary wild game numbers may be plummeting.

There are worrying signs that Namibia’s legendary wild game numbers may be plummeting. Four years ago the Namibian Professional Hunters Association raised an alarm about the lack of huntable elephant bulls in the Caprivi region, where the number of communal conservancies had grown from one in 1997 to 15 today.

How did 13 rhino bulls from the Kruger National Park end up on a hunting farm owned by a reclusive Russian billionaire in Namibia? John Grobler and Khadija Sharife follow the trail

Xuecheng Hou, a wealthy Chinese businessman linked to wildlife contraband trafficking, has emerged as a major player in the illegal trade in rare African timber in sub-Saharan Africa. John Grobler investigates.

The Namibian authorities don’t seem to be in any hurry to shut down a rhino horn smuggling syndicate that has infiltrated security at Windhoek’s airport, writes John Grobler.

Depending on your views about legal trade in wildlife products, the past week was either a good week or a very good week for Namibian conservation, writes John Grobler.

After a two-year investigation, John Grobler exposes the totem-based networks facilitating transnational rhino horn smuggling and defeating the criminal justice system’s pursuit of suspects.

John Grobler visits Okahao, a sleepy settlement near Etosha National Park at the centre of the poaching plague threatening the world’s last viable population of critically endangered black rhinos.

The second recent court development followed the sensational arrest of a young, up-and-coming Windhoek businessman named “Mox” Namwandi. Who is he? John Grobler tracks his connections.

Court evidence reveals the typical methdology deployed by one of five organised crime syndicates believed to be active in Namibian wildlife trafficking, reports John Grobler.

A 10-month-long investigation by John Grobler uncovers the political and commercial agendas driving the world’s largest black rhino population towards extinction.

The Save the Rhino Trust (SRT) has launched an internal investigation after it was presented with a letter in mid-December outlining possible collusion between some staff members and poachers who have killed at least 18 critically endangered Kunene black rhinos since late 2012. The crisis at the SRT is however just part of a larger one in anti-poaching law enforcement and natural resource management in the so-called “Big Three” communal conservancies - Palmwag, Abenab and Sesfontein - in southern Kunene.

Ben Simasiku, a 31-year-old suspected ivory smuggler, has been arrested in Zambia after the first-ever Interpol public appeal, dubbed to track down nine environmental fugitives.

How did ‘Boxer’ die? Why are dead rhinos being found in the area his team patrolled? John Grobler digs up strange secrets surrounding the deaths of black rhinos in the Kunene region of Namibia.