Killing for Profit: Exposing the Illegal Rhino Horn Trade (7 page)

Clifford gets as comfortable as he can in his car. The meeting is set to take place any minute now. There is a burst of static as Moulton’s shirt catches on the mike, then the audio returns to normal. You never know with these things. Sometimes there’s interference with the signal. They’ll only know when they play back the tapes. Hopefully it works today. The target is ready to deal. Inside the diner, Moulton shakes hands with the bearded man. ‘Hi, John,’ he says. Lukman smiles back.

Moulton doesn’t really know what to make of Lukman. He’s collected snippets here and there, gleaned what he can from official documents and listened attentively to Lukman’s tales of derring-do.

He knows that, in 1976, Lukman – then twenty-two – had sued the CIA and its director, George H.W. Bush, for access to classified documents they had on him. In refusing a Freedom of Information Act request filed by Lukman, a CIA review committee said that the only document it had could not be released, as it was a ‘classified document relating to our liaison contacts with a foreign government’. The 1972 file contained ‘information pertaining
to intelligence sources and methods which the director of Central Intelligence has the responsibility to protect’.

A report in the
Hartford Courant
quoted Lukman as saying that the only explanation he had for the existence of the document was his shortwave radio hobby. As a teenager, he had written to countries around the world requesting broadcasting schedules and ‘cultural information’. Lukman argued that he was seeking a job with the US State Department and wanted to review the document in case he had to undergo a security-clearance interview. The article noted that Lukman, ‘who hasn’t any formal education beyond high school, said he has travelled in the southern and eastern regions of Africa and in Europe, Jamaica and Canada’.

Moulton quickly learns that Lukman is an incorrigible storyteller. Stroke his ego enough and he’ll tell you everything – up to a point. He likes to impress and name-drops shamelessly. He claims his ‘good friends’ include senior Reagan White House officials and Ian Smith, the former prime minister of Rhodesia. The leopard mount he sold to the man in New Jersey was initially stored in the garage of Smith’s Harare home, he later tells Moulton. Lukman also has ties to the Mozambican National Resistance (RENAMO), the Mozambican rebel movement established in the 1970s with the shadowy support of Zimbabwe’s Central Intelligence Organisation (CIO). He’s spent time with Jonas Savimbi, leader of the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA), the South African and US proxy in the Cold War against the Soviets and the Cubans.

In fact, Lukman seems irresistibly drawn to all things military. He describes the editor of
Soldier of Fortune
magazine as a close friend. His acquaintances include several members of the Rhodesian Veterans’ Association, and he once paid $5 000 for a leather-bound collector’s edition of a book by military author Peter Stiff about the Selous Scouts, the notorious Rhodesian counter-insurgency unit.

Lukman’s views of the African continent are rose-tinted and romanticised, his imagination fuelled by the exploits of big-game hunters and tales of mysterious warriors and ancient kingdoms. ‘Africa is where my soul is,’ he often says. He travels frequently to destinations there and also in South America. Once he dropped in on ‘friends’ stationed at the Ilopango Air Base in El Salvador
– the launch pad for US military supplies to Nicaragua’s murderous contra rebels. On another occasion, he turned up in Nicaragua. And then there are the frequent trips to Cuba. In those days, what American went in and out of Cuba so effortlessly? None that Moulton knew. For some time now, he’s wondered about Lukman’s background. Could he be CIA? The agency denies it.

Lukman and Moulton order lunch. Soup for Moulton, a submarine sandwich for Lukman. Moulton hands over $2 400 for a mounted cheetah head and a skin. They arrange for the goods to be shipped from South West Africa to a post office box Moulton has set up for the sting. The goods will be marked as ‘curios’. Lukman assures him his contacts in South West Africa, a man named Marius and his wife Pat, are reliable.

The conversation drifts from illicit wildlife trophies to Lukman’s adventures in Africa. Then, Lukman broaches a new subject. ‘You know, Rick, I can get you machine guns,’ he says abruptly. Moulton remains poker-faced. In the car outside, Clifford – who has just taken a bite of his sandwich – starts to choke.

In retrospect, Moulton isn’t too surprised. Often wildlife crime investigations diverge into other areas: drugs, guns, money-laundering, you name it. Pablo Escobar, the violent Colombian drug lord, is known to have his own private menagerie of hippos, zebras, giraffes and rhinos at his sprawling estate near Medellin. It’s a little narco-zoo, perfect for laundering drug money. In Florida, some of the biggest drug kingpins are avid collectors of reptiles and animal trophies. Increasingly, federal agents are seizing consignments of live reptiles stuffed with cocaine-filled condoms. When the condoms burst, the deaths are frightful. On other occasions they’ve found drugs stashed in polar bear hides. Rhino horn, reptiles, guns, drugs – they are all commodities to be bought and sold on the black market, and the smuggling routes are often the same.

‘AKs are nice,’ Lukman says. He claims that his contacts handle all the weapons with gloves to ensure that there are no telltale fingerprints for customs or the ATF to work with, should they intercept a shipment. ‘They’re brand new, ready to go,’ he says.

Lukman boasts that not only can he get AKs, but he has access to Soviet fragmentation grenades and even landmines. He claims the weapons form part of stockpiles captured from Cuban soldiers in Angola by South African troops. He confides that a friend of his in Georgia – a member of the Rhode-sian Veterans’ Association – resells the arms. The profits from these spoils are then divided up between Lukman, his friend, and his South West African contacts, Marius and Pat.

‘I’m not much into guns,’ Moulton says. ‘But my marine buddy Bob is.’ It is a coded message to Clifford. ATF can take the guns from here. ‘You tell your marine buddy that if he’s interested in anything that is communist-bloc-orientated, there’s nothing we can’t get,’ Lukman says.

Moulton arranges for Lukman to meet Bob. Clifford will be the ideal plant. He is a Vietnam veteran and a former marine. No acting required.

The meeting is delayed when Lukman is suddenly called to Washington. He’s been invited to the White House, where UNITA leader Jonas Savimbi is on a charm offensive to secure US support for the movement. Moulton marvels at how Lukman has managed to get security clearance in only twenty-four hours.

‘It makes you really wonder what’s going on,’ he confides to Jim Genco, the US prosecutor who will be handling the ‘Wiseguy’ case. Moulton notifies the Secret Service that a target of an investigation is going to be at the White House. They promise to keep an eye on him.

On his return to Connecticut, Lukman calls Moulton. ‘Tell your marine buddy I have a few things that those pig-stickers attach to.’ In military parlance, ‘pig-stickers’ are bayonets. The ‘things they attach to’ are evidently AK-47s.

July 1988

Lukman ushers Moulton and Clifford into his Newington condominium. It is crowded with the detritus of his travels. On a wall is a large map of Africa. There are wood carvings of animals, line drawings of warriors armed with spears and shields, and an elephant footstool. Rather bizarrely, there’s a bayonet stuck into a wooden table. African masks stare blankly into space. In
one corner is an autographed portrait of the bearded Savimbi wearing green army fatigues and a red beret. There is a UNITA flag and election posters for Smith’s Rhodesian Front. A framed photograph shows Lukman posing alongside Smith. They have their arms around one another. Taking pride of place is a painting of Lukman – the great adventurer – in khaki shorts, jungle boots and a bush hat. He’s staring into the middle distance, looking noble, like the explorers of old. The Victoria Falls thunder below him.

Lukman closes the blinds next to Moulton. He flips a switch in the corner of the room. Shadows dance up the walls as the white glare of a spotlight blinds the two agents. Without a word, Lukman turns and walks quickly to the kitchen. Blinking, Moulton looks at Clifford. This is odd. What’s going on? They see Lukman reach up for something in the kitchen. When he turns around, there is an AK-47 in his hands. The ‘pucker-factor’, as Moulton likes to call it, goes way up. Lukman had said nothing about selling a gun today.

‘Crap, he’s figured out who we are,’ Moulton thinks. Heart pounding, he feels a surge of panic, but keeps it in check. Neither he nor Clifford is carrying a weapon. If Lukman pulls the trigger, they’ll be plugged full of lead and dead in a blood-spattered heap before the back-up team can crash through the doors. There’s nothing they can do.

Lukman advances, the barrel pointed directly at them. He hands the gun to Moulton. There’s an uncertain pause. Then the tension breaks. They breathe again. ‘Look, Rick, I don’t know him,’ Lukman says, nodding at Clifford. ‘I know you. I’ll only sell it to you and you can give it to him.’ It is a bizarre statement, given that Clifford is standing right there. No matter. The deal is still illegal. Moulton passes the AK to Bob, who does a quick field test. Satisfied, he gives Moulton the money, and Moulton hands it to Lukman.

‘The AKs are from Marius,’ Lukman says proudly, referring to his contact. He gestures at a photograph on a counter. It shows an army major in full battle dress. Marius, Lukman explains, has access to South African Defence Force (SADF) warehouses in South West Africa (later to become Namibia) that are ‘loaded with Soviet and Cuban weapons’ taken from Angola. Some of the weapons are being funnelled to RENAMO in Mozambique. In the garage of his home in South West Africa’s capital, Windhoek, Marius has hoarded assault rifles, pistols and even landmines, and is doing a neat trade
in ‘war memorabilia’ to US connections made through
Soldier of Fortune
magazine’s classified ads.

While Lukman chats animatedly to Clifford, Moulton hastily jots down a name on the photograph: ‘Marius Meiring’. It’s another link in an ever-widening puzzle. He notices another photograph of Meiring on the wall. It’s a family portrait of Marius, Pat and the kids. It strikes him as odd that Lukman – who is divorced and has kids of his own – would have a photograph of another man’s family on his wall.