How rhino poacher hired sex workers to dupe authorities – and the hunt for the ‘Pablo Escobar of wildlife trafficking’

Published

2 years ago

December 31, 2023

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It is said to be worth more than its weight in gold, diamonds or cocaine.

The rhino horn trade in Africa and Asia gave rise to criminality and profit on an industrial level, with buyers and sellers making millions.

Steve Galster has made it his life’s work to go after people who brazenly take and sell animal parts.

In 2011, museums and galleries – including some in the UK – reported thefts of rhino horn, with the practice and trade exploding.

As the artefacts dwindled in numbers, live rhinos became the targets, at any cost, in the hunt for profits.

Galster started his career in international security, focusing on wars and insurgencies, but later set up a charity looking into wildlife trafficking.

He says when he scratched the surface of how criminal groups were able to get involved in “pretty nasty insurgencies” in the 1990s, he discovered it came from poaching.

“They just had access to it and there was no real enforcement shield around these animals… it was pretty easy pickings,” Galster tells Sky News.

“Rhinos are pretty easy targets in some countries – that was $65,000 a kilo.

“(Rhino horn is) a small thing to move, you can put that in suitcases. That was super attractive to these groups.”

But why was it fetching such a big price at market?

Many people believe it has medicinal purposes, particularly when it comes to cancer, even though there is no scientific evidence to prove this. Galster says it is often sold as “really expensive aspirin”.

Others hoard it away (in case a relative falls ill) and sell it on later in life as prices rise.

Then there is the art world. Rhino horn is rare, and it’s seen as a status symbol among the wealthy.

‘The Pablo Escobar of wildlife trafficking’

A new Sky documentary focuses on the hunt for a kingpin in Laos who sent his team to take rhino horns from South Africa and smuggle them back through Thailand.

Galster was part of the team that first discovered Vixay Keosavang – dubbed the “Pablo Escobar of wildlife trafficking”.

The US state department said Keosavang was believed to be the leader of the Xaysavang Network, an international wildlife trafficking syndicate which facilitates the killing of endangered elephants, rhinos, pangolins, and other species for products such as ivory and rhino horn.

A reward of up to $1m has been offered for information that leads to the dismantling of the network.

Galster describes going into an “industrial slaughterhouse”, owned by a man known as Fatty who was killing animals such as tigers, bears, and pangolins in Thailand, before driving them to the border to hand them over to Keosavang.

“It felt like sort of a Silence Of The Lambs film,” he says.

“It was basically a farmhouse… we drove up there with all these cars, went in, and we knew there was something weird going on.

“You see these tigers and these bears, and then they’re all hauling out these buckets of body parts. There was a baby orangutan in the freezer. They had turtles, snakes, all kinds of stuff.”

The discovery was part of a chain of events that led them to Chumlong Lemtongthai, who had been hired by Keosavang to hunt for rhino horn in South Africa.

He set up pseudo-hunts, going as far as hiring sex workers for a few hundred dollars and taking them out there, having their names on the documentation and pretending they fired the shots, so the horns could be taken back to Laos.

In South Africa at the time, trophy hunting was legal, but individuals could only shoot one rhino per year – a practice that has now changed.

From there, police and security services tracked and followed Lemtongthai at airports, and were able to prove he was illegally trafficking animal parts from South Africa, back into Laos.

He was given 40 years in South African prison – but was out in six.

‘We’re getting our butts kicked’ by poachers

The practice of wildlife smuggling still carries on.

Galster believes the legal trade is the biggest cause of the illegal trade, saying criminals rely on aspects allowed by law to carry out their own activities and launder the body parts successfully.

“The biggest thing we can learn from this is – let’s halt commercial trade in wild animals,” he says.

“It’s benefiting a tiny percentage of people in the world.

“We can link this trade in some cases to zoonotic outbreaks, so it’s potentially harming a lot of people as well.

“We’re trying to do that – but we’ve run up against some very strong opposition.”

Galster says the poachers have global links beyond the likes of South East Asia and Africa, believing the main players have roots in Europe and the US too.

“We’re really behind in this game,” he adds.

“We’re getting our butts kicked. And one of the ways to catch up is to at least pause, if not ban, commercial trade and wild animals, because there’s no way that the current law, wildlife protectors out there can stop this.”

The Great Rhino Robbery will be available on Sky Documentaries and streaming service NOW from 3 January at 9pm.

World

Donald Trump announces 30% tariff on imports from EU

Published

4 hours ago

July 12, 2025

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Donald Trump announces 30% tariff on imports from EU

Donald Trump has announced he will impose a 30% tariff on imports from the European Union from 1 August.

The tariffs could make everything from French cheese and Italian leather goods to German electronics and Spanish pharmaceuticals more expensive in the US.

Mr Trump has also imposed a 30% tariff on goods from Mexico, according to a post from his Truth Social account.

Announcing the moves in separate letters on the account, the president said the US trade deficit was a national security threat.

In his letter to the EU, he wrote: “We have had years to discuss our trading relationship with The European Union, and we have concluded we must move away from these long-term, large, and persistent, trade Deficits, engendered by your tariff, and non-Tariff, policies, and trade barriers.

“Our relationship has been, unfortunately, far from reciprocal.”

In his letter to Mexico, Mr Trump said he did not think the country had done enough to stop the US from turning into a “narco-trafficking playground”.

The president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, said today that the EU could adopt “proportionate countermeasures” if the US proceeds with imposing the 30% tariff.

Ms von der Leyen, who heads the EU’s executive arm, said in a statement that the bloc remained ready “to continue working towards an agreement by Aug 1”.

“Few economies in the world match the European Union’s level of openness and adherence to fair trading practices,” she continued.

“We will take all necessary steps to safeguard EU interests, including the adoption of proportionate countermeasures if required.”

Ms von der Leyen has also said imposing tariffs on EU exports would “disrupt essential transatlantic supply chains”.

Meanwhile, Dutch Prime Minister Dick Schoof said on the X social media platform that Mr Trump’s announcement was “very concerning and not the way forward”.

He added: “The European Commission can count on our full support. As the EU we must remain united and resolute in pursuing an outcome with the United States that is mutually beneficial.”

Mexico’s economy ministry said a bilateral working group aims to reach an alternative to the 30% US tariffs before they are due to take effect.

The country was informed by the US that it would receive a letter about the tariffs, the ministry’s statement said, adding that Mexico was negotiating.

Trump’s tariff threats and delays

On his so-called “liberation day” in April, Mr Trump unleashed “reciprocal tariffs” on many of America’s trade partners.

The US president said he was targeting countries with which America has a trade imbalance.

However, since then he’s backed down in a spiralling tit-for-tat tariff face-off with China, and struck a deal with the UK.

The US imposed a 20% tariff on imported goods from the EU in April but it was later paused and the bloc has since been paying a baseline tariff of 10% on goods it exports to the US.

In May, while the US and EU where holding trade negotiations, Mr Trump threated to impose a 50% tariff on the bloc as talks didn’t progress as he would have liked.

However, he later announced he was delaying the imposition of that tariff while negotiations over a trade deal took place.

As of earlier this week, the EU’s executive commission, which handles trade issues for the bloc’s 27-member nations, said its leaders were still hoping to strike a trade deal with the Trump administration.

Without one, the EU said it was prepared to retaliate with tariffs on hundreds of American products, ranging from beef and auto parts to beer and Boeing airplanes.

World

‘At least 798 killed’ at Gaza aid points – as medical charity warns acute malnutrition at all-time high

Published

23 hours ago

July 11, 2025

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'At least 798 killed' at Gaza aid points - as medical charity warns acute malnutrition at all-time high

At least 798 people in Gaza have reportedly been killed while receiving aid in the past six weeks – while acute malnutrition is said to have reached an all-time high.

The UN human rights office said 615 of the deaths – between 27 May and 7 July – were “in the vicinity” of sites run by the controversial US and Israel-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF).

A further 183 people killed were “presumably on the route of aid convoys,” said Ravina Shamdasani, from the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights.

Its figures are based on a range of sources, including hospitals, cemeteries, and families in the Gaza Strip, as well as non-governmental organisations (NGOs), its partners on the ground, and Hamas-run health authorities.

Aid agency Project Hope said on Thursday that 10 children were among at least 15 people killed as they waited for its clinic in Deir al Balah to open.

The GHF has claimed the UN figures are “false and misleading” and has repeatedly denied any violence at or around its sites.

Meanwhile, Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) – also known as Doctors Without Borders – said two of its sites were seeing their worst-ever levels of severe malnutrition.

Cases at its Gaza City clinic are said to have tripled from 293 in May to 983 in early July.

“Over 700 pregnant or breastfeeding women and nearly 500 children are now receiving emergency nutritional care,” MSF said.

The humanitarian medical charity said food prices were at extreme levels, with sugar at $766 (£567) per kilo and flour $30 (£22) per kilo, and many families surviving on one meal of rice or lentils a day.

It’s a major concern for the estimated 55,000 pregnant women in Gaza, who risk miscarriage, stillbirth and malnourished infants because of the shortages.

The GHF began distributing food packages in Gaza at the end of May, after Israel eased its 11-week blockade of aid into the coastal territory.

It has four distribution centres, three of which are in the southern Gaza Strip.

The sites, kept off-limits to independent media, are guarded by private security contractors and located in zones where the Israeli military operates.

Palestinian witnesses say Israeli forces have repeatedly opened fire towards crowds of people going to receive aid.

The Israeli military says it has fired warning shots at people who have behaved in what it says is a suspicious manner.

It says its forces operate near the aid sites to stop supplies from falling into the hands of militants.

After the deaths of hundreds of Palestinians trying to reach the aid hubs, the United Nations has called the GHF’s aid model “inherently unsafe” and a violation of humanitarian impartiality standards.

In response, a GHF spokesperson said: “The fact is the most deadly attacks on aid sites have been linked to UN convoys.”

The GHF says it has delivered more than 70 million meals to Gazans in five weeks and claims other humanitarian groups had “nearly all of their aid looted” by Hamas or criminal gangs.

World

At least 798 people have been killed at Gaza aid points, the UN says

Published

1 day ago

July 11, 2025

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At least 798 people in Gaza have been killed while receiving aid in six weeks, the UN human rights office has said.

A spokesperson for the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights said 615 of the killings were “in the vicinity” of sites run by the controversial US and Israel-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF).

A further 183 people killed were “presumably on the route of aid convoys,” Ravina Shamdasani told reporters in Geneva.

The office said its figures are based on numbers from a range of sources, including hospitals, cemeteries and families in the Gaza Strip, as well as NGOs, its partners on the ground and the Hamas-run health authorities.

The GHF has claimed the figures are “false and misleading”. It has repeatedly denied there has been any violence at or around its sites.

The organisation began distributing food packages in Gaza at the end of May, after Israel eased its 11-week blockade of aid into the enclave.

It has four distribution centres, three of which are in the southern Gaza Strip. The sites, kept off-limits to independent media, are guarded by private security contractors and located in zones where the Israeli military operates.

Palestinian witnesses say Israeli forces have repeatedly opened fire towards crowds of people going to receive aid.

The Israeli military says it has fired warning shots at people who have behaved in what they say is a suspicious manner.

It says its forces operate near the aid sites to stop supplies falling into the hands of militants.

In response, a GHF spokesperson told the Reuters news agency: “The fact is the most deadly attacks on aid sites have been linked to UN convoys.”

The GHF says it has delivered more than 70 million meals to Gazans in five weeks and claims other humanitarian groups had “nearly all of their aid looted” by Hamas or criminal gangs.