Operation Lock And The War On Rhino Poaching (Paperback)

Reviews

"A story that needed to be told" by Andrew - 2 January 2017

Back in the late 1980’s, people within the WWF realised that the rhino poachers were militant and aggressive and that regular anti-poaching procedures were having no impact. To counter this, a group of British mercenaries were employed to try and infiltrate smuggling rings, as well as provide training to the wildlife officials that were facing the actual poachers. This project was named ‘Operation Lock’ and was kept highly confidential, mainly to protect the operatives infiltrating the poaching rings. Unfortunately, it was this secrecy that made ‘Operation Lock’ look a little suspicious; the flames of rumour were fanned by the fact that OL was based in South Africa, itself a hotbed of misinformation. So it was almost inevitable that a secret organisation operating in SA at the time would automatically be assumed to have nefarious motives. Especially when SA operatives did try to infiltrate the operation to tap into the network. When the story broke, the WWF got rid of the problem by the simple expedient of denying all knowledge, leaving John Hanks holding the bag. A bag he has steadfastly refused to open until now, 30 years after the controversy. John Hanks has written a book covering this wonderfully interesting incident in the rhino poaching wars, but his history of the issues and overview of the current situation make OL a worthwhile and invaluable read. Extremely knowledgeable and capable of simplifying technical concepts, Hanks draws on his more than 50 years’ experience to tell a story that needed to be told.