Mahlobo’s rhino poacher ‘mate’
Posted: Sun Nov 13, 2016 9:09 am
http://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/News/ ... e-20161112
Mahlobo’s rhino poacher ‘mate’
2016-11-13 06:00
Julian Rademeyer-CITY PRESS
Guan Jiang Guang, who claims to be a friend of State Security Minister David Mahlobo, shows an undercover investigator from Al Jazeera a picture of himself with a man who appears to be the minister . (Al Jazeera)
State Security Minister David Mahlobo has allegedly been hanging out with a Chinese organised crime figure who traffics rhino horns and openly brags about bribing South African justice and immigration officials.
These claims are contained in a new documentary by Al Jazeera Investigates, which airs on the international news channel at 2pm today.
Video secretly recorded by an undercover investigator shows Guan Jiang Guang – a “businessman” and massage parlour owner in Mbombela – swiping through photographs on his phone that appear to show him and Mahlobo.
“He came to my massage parlour every week, or at least twice a month,” Guan says. “I know him well … [He was] a guest at my home.”
One of the photographs appears to show Mahlobo with a young woman, described by Guan as “one of my manicure girls”.
Mahlobo, however, denies the claims. His spokesperson Brian Dube told Al Jazeera:
“The minister has indicated that he does not have any relationship with the gentleman and he has never been to his house or received any of his services at his house as claimed.”
On Friday, Dube told City Press:
“In order for us to comment, we want the details of the photographs and video material purporting to show these allegations, as well as the details of the undercover investigator.
Failing which, we will not be in a position to comment and we will reserve our rights in this regard.”
Mahlobo’s alleged relationship with Guan is significant given the mandate of the State Security Agency, which he oversees, to provide government with critical intelligence on national security threats, including organised crime.
In a speech to delegates attending the recent meeting of parties at the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (Cites) in Johannesburg, President Jacob Zuma described wildlife trafficking for the first time as a “significant threat … to this country’s national security”.
Guan claimed that he met Mahlobo during the latter’s tenure as head of the department of cooperative governance and traditional affairs in Mpumalanga. In 2014, Mahlobo replaced Siyabonga Cwele as minister of state security.
(Al Jazeera)
Recorded with a hidden camera, Guan claims that he employs illegal immigrants in his massage parlour and easily circumvents immigration laws.
“Everything in Africa is based on money. I give … two guys at the immigration department … about $70 (R1 005) each a month. They don’t even investigate.”
Guan said that shortly after he first came to South Africa, he was arrested and convicted of running an illegal “gambling den”.
But that too was quickly dealt with by paying “under-the-table money” to officials in the department of justice. The bribe was “very cheap, a few thousand,” he says on tape.
In the footage, Guan offers to help the undercover investigator obtain rhino horn, but warns him to “be careful”.
“If a black guy comes to you and says he has horn, after you pay, they deliver and the police will arrest you. You will lose the horn and have to pay at least a R1 million fine.”
In a subsequent meeting, Guan boasts that he has an “untouchable” source at Beijing Capital International Airport who has “absolutely no problem” smuggling rhino horn into China.
“He specialises in this business.”
(Al Jazeera)
Guan proves true to his word. Weeks later, the Al Jazeera investigator meets Guan’s contact in China’s Fujian province. In a parked car at the side of a road, the contact shows him a 2.25kg rhino horn. The price: $27 000 a kilogram. In total, the horn would have cost nearly R900 000.
The role of Chinese nationals in the illicit rhino horn trade has grown markedly in recent years.
Even officials in the highest echelons of government are implicated.
Perhaps most disturbingly, the documentary alleges that members of a high-level delegation accompanying Chinese President Xi Jinping to South Africa last year for the Johannesburg summit of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation bought rhino horn and “a lot of” ivory.
A number of cooks and guides who catered for the summit told investigators that delegates pressed them to find ivory and that demand for ivory chopsticks, ornaments, bracelets, pen holders and personalised seals was so great the supplier “sold out in two days”.
The delegates had diplomatic immunity, which ordinarily would prevent customs and police officials from searching their luggage as they left the country.
Usually, in terms of the 1961 Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations, the “diplomatic bag” – a blanket term that refers to anything from an envelope to a shipping container – cannot “be opened or detained” by customs, police or government officials.
A diplomatic bag can only be searched “if there are serious grounds for presuming that it contains articles not covered by the [diplomatic] exemptions”.
The Vietnamese embassy in Pretoria has been implicated on several occasions in the smuggling of rhino horn.
The Al Jazeera documentary examines evidence that high-ranking Vietnamese officials, including the country’s ambassador to South Africa, Le Huy Hoang, have visited or have ties to a game farm in North West that is owned by a prominent Vietnamese businessman and alleged rhino horn kingpin, Michael Chu.
The Vietnamese embassy has not denied the claims.
Diplomatic involvement in the rhino horn trade also extends to North Korea’s embassy in Pretoria.
In December last year, News24 reported that the department of international relations had asked a senior diplomat to leave South Africa after he and a taekwondo master were arrested in Mozambique with 4.5kg of rhino horn and close to $100 000 in cash.
Rademeyer is a senior research fellow at the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organised Crime and author of Killing for Profit (2012)
Mahlobo’s rhino poacher ‘mate’
2016-11-13 06:00
Julian Rademeyer-CITY PRESS
Guan Jiang Guang, who claims to be a friend of State Security Minister David Mahlobo, shows an undercover investigator from Al Jazeera a picture of himself with a man who appears to be the minister . (Al Jazeera)
State Security Minister David Mahlobo has allegedly been hanging out with a Chinese organised crime figure who traffics rhino horns and openly brags about bribing South African justice and immigration officials.
These claims are contained in a new documentary by Al Jazeera Investigates, which airs on the international news channel at 2pm today.
Video secretly recorded by an undercover investigator shows Guan Jiang Guang – a “businessman” and massage parlour owner in Mbombela – swiping through photographs on his phone that appear to show him and Mahlobo.
“He came to my massage parlour every week, or at least twice a month,” Guan says. “I know him well … [He was] a guest at my home.”
One of the photographs appears to show Mahlobo with a young woman, described by Guan as “one of my manicure girls”.
Mahlobo, however, denies the claims. His spokesperson Brian Dube told Al Jazeera:
“The minister has indicated that he does not have any relationship with the gentleman and he has never been to his house or received any of his services at his house as claimed.”
On Friday, Dube told City Press:
“In order for us to comment, we want the details of the photographs and video material purporting to show these allegations, as well as the details of the undercover investigator.
Failing which, we will not be in a position to comment and we will reserve our rights in this regard.”
Mahlobo’s alleged relationship with Guan is significant given the mandate of the State Security Agency, which he oversees, to provide government with critical intelligence on national security threats, including organised crime.
In a speech to delegates attending the recent meeting of parties at the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (Cites) in Johannesburg, President Jacob Zuma described wildlife trafficking for the first time as a “significant threat … to this country’s national security”.
Guan claimed that he met Mahlobo during the latter’s tenure as head of the department of cooperative governance and traditional affairs in Mpumalanga. In 2014, Mahlobo replaced Siyabonga Cwele as minister of state security.
(Al Jazeera)
Recorded with a hidden camera, Guan claims that he employs illegal immigrants in his massage parlour and easily circumvents immigration laws.
“Everything in Africa is based on money. I give … two guys at the immigration department … about $70 (R1 005) each a month. They don’t even investigate.”
Guan said that shortly after he first came to South Africa, he was arrested and convicted of running an illegal “gambling den”.
But that too was quickly dealt with by paying “under-the-table money” to officials in the department of justice. The bribe was “very cheap, a few thousand,” he says on tape.
In the footage, Guan offers to help the undercover investigator obtain rhino horn, but warns him to “be careful”.
“If a black guy comes to you and says he has horn, after you pay, they deliver and the police will arrest you. You will lose the horn and have to pay at least a R1 million fine.”
In a subsequent meeting, Guan boasts that he has an “untouchable” source at Beijing Capital International Airport who has “absolutely no problem” smuggling rhino horn into China.
“He specialises in this business.”
(Al Jazeera)
Guan proves true to his word. Weeks later, the Al Jazeera investigator meets Guan’s contact in China’s Fujian province. In a parked car at the side of a road, the contact shows him a 2.25kg rhino horn. The price: $27 000 a kilogram. In total, the horn would have cost nearly R900 000.
The role of Chinese nationals in the illicit rhino horn trade has grown markedly in recent years.
Even officials in the highest echelons of government are implicated.
Perhaps most disturbingly, the documentary alleges that members of a high-level delegation accompanying Chinese President Xi Jinping to South Africa last year for the Johannesburg summit of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation bought rhino horn and “a lot of” ivory.
A number of cooks and guides who catered for the summit told investigators that delegates pressed them to find ivory and that demand for ivory chopsticks, ornaments, bracelets, pen holders and personalised seals was so great the supplier “sold out in two days”.
The delegates had diplomatic immunity, which ordinarily would prevent customs and police officials from searching their luggage as they left the country.
Usually, in terms of the 1961 Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations, the “diplomatic bag” – a blanket term that refers to anything from an envelope to a shipping container – cannot “be opened or detained” by customs, police or government officials.
A diplomatic bag can only be searched “if there are serious grounds for presuming that it contains articles not covered by the [diplomatic] exemptions”.
The Vietnamese embassy in Pretoria has been implicated on several occasions in the smuggling of rhino horn.
The Al Jazeera documentary examines evidence that high-ranking Vietnamese officials, including the country’s ambassador to South Africa, Le Huy Hoang, have visited or have ties to a game farm in North West that is owned by a prominent Vietnamese businessman and alleged rhino horn kingpin, Michael Chu.
The Vietnamese embassy has not denied the claims.
Diplomatic involvement in the rhino horn trade also extends to North Korea’s embassy in Pretoria.
In December last year, News24 reported that the department of international relations had asked a senior diplomat to leave South Africa after he and a taekwondo master were arrested in Mozambique with 4.5kg of rhino horn and close to $100 000 in cash.
Rademeyer is a senior research fellow at the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organised Crime and author of Killing for Profit (2012)
