86 / SEPTEMBER 2019
certi cate. ey noticed that the
globe-trotting trophy hunter who’d
supposedly nabbed this rhino was
actually a 20-year-old woman,
originally from northeast ailand.
at seemed odd.
IN ALL OF BANGKOK,
nobody was more interested in this
little customs anomaly than Steve
Galster. A shrewd and determined
American conservationist, he’d
cultivated a cosy relationship with
customs o cials because he craved
this sort of intel. When he was
tipped o about the strange package,
he knew exactly what was going on.
Galster had moved to ailand
a decade earlier, setting up his own
cloak-and-dagger operation to
map – and dismantle – the covert
market for illegal animal parts. He
had zeroed in on the networks that
powered the illicit trade, devoting
particular attention to an elaborate
organisation that he had dubbed
“Hydra”, a er the multiple-headed
sea serpent of Greek mythology.
e scheme that Lemtongthai was
wrapped up in, Galster believed,
looked like a Hydra operation.
Run by a handful of powerful
gangsters based in ailand and
Laos, Hydra utilised an army of
suppliers who would deliver rhino
horns, elephant tusks, lion bones,
tiger bones, bear bile, the spines
of pangolins (anteaters found in
dwindling numbers in Southeast
Asia and Africa), and other parts
harvested from protected wildlife.
Hydra also maintained a network
of corrupt cops, customs o cials,
and court o cials to facilitate
shipments and shield itself from
prosecution. Lemtongthai, Galster
grasped, appeared to be a major
gure in the syndicate.
Indeed, Lemtongthai was
feeding brisk demand at the time,
according to Galster. On 23 April
2011, Lemtongthai’s buyer in Laos
placed an order for 50 sets of rhino
horns and 300 lion skeletons,
which would sell for a total of
R213 million. Lemtongthai would
clear R21 million on the deal.
While Galster was focused on
Lemtongthai, o cials in South
Africa were gathering evidence on
the staged hunts, too. In November
2011, as Lemtongthai stepped o a
ight from Bangkok, cops stopped
the tra cker at the airport. ‘We
found [incriminating] documents
and computer les, along with
photos of dead rhinos he was
posing with,’ investigator Charles
van Niekerk told me. Faced with
evidence compiled by both Van
Niekerk and Galster, Lemtongthai
pleaded guilty to running the
scam and was sent to prison for
six years. For Galster, this victory
was just the start. Determined
to work up the shadowy Hydra
chain, he paid close attention to the
scurrying chaos and reorganisation
set o within the syndicate by
Lemtongthai’s capture. Galster
vowed he wasn’t going to rest until
he had killed Hydra completely.THE NERVE CENTRE
of Galster’s operation is tucked
inconspicuously into a back
alley in central Bangkok. In
one windowless o ce, Galster’s
obsession is splayed across an
entire wall – a blizzard of headshots,
birth dates, maps, government ID
numbers, biographical text blocks,
and hundreds of crisscrossing
lines that delineate pecking orders,
family relationships, and criminal
connections. It’s a map of secrets:
a eld guide, Galster says, of
‘who’s who in the zoo’.
e giant dossier is deadly
serious for Galster. ‘ ey are
mass, serial murderers,’ he tells
me. By way of example, he points
to the rise in rhinos slaughtered
in South Africa in the past two
decades – from 13 in 2007 to 83 in
2008 to 1 028 in 2017, an average
of nearly three a day – a spike that
he attributes in large part to Hydra.
‘ ese guys are laying waste to the
world’s most iconic and precious
species for a ton of money,’ he says.
While the pace of the slaughter
has quickened, the demand in Asia
for illicit animal parts is nothing
new. Ancient Chinese medical
texts are replete with references to
the medicinal properties of rhino
horn, tiger bone, anteater scales
and bear gallbladders. Some of the
powers are purely imaginary: the
keratin that composes a rhino’s
horn has no proven medical value.
Other products have uses a bit
more grounded in science. Bear
bile is rich in ursodeoxycholic
acid, which is useful for treating
liver and gallbladder conditions.
Scienti c or not, the trade in
animal parts has grown more
complex. e market for tusks,
bones and pangolin scales – which
are all hard, durable products thatcan be stashed away for years- now includes savvy commodities
brokers have hopes of making big
pro ts from when prices spike.
For many wealthy elites in
China and Vietnam, the reputed
health bene ts are almost beside
the point. e products have
become status symbols, hauled
out at parties and business
meetings – markers of taste and
sophistication. And a fast-rising
middle class in both countries is
increasingly fueling the trade.
e e ects have been
devastating. Aside from the well-
documented mass slaughter of
Africa’s rhinos and elephants,
Asian tigers have declined from
100 000 over a century ago to
fewer than 4 000 today, while
the rhino population in Asia
has plummeted to the brink
of extinction during the same
period. And the cruelty is near
unimaginable: bear bile “farmers”,
who operate throughout Southeast
Asia, o en insert catheters into
a captive live animal, a frequently
agonising procedure, to extract the
precious uid from its gallbladder.
Sometimes tra ckers save
themselves the trouble and just kill
the bear outright, cut out the organ
for onetime use and ship it on ice.
e ai government has known
about the abuses for a long time;
but, for many years, it turned a blind
eye to them. ‘ ere have been no
rewards, no bonuses, no incentives
for ghting wildlife crime in
ailand,’ Galster says. ‘Police would
rather work in counternarcotics or
counterterrorism. We’re trying to
c h a n g e t h a t .’
e Freeland Foundation
routinely shares information and
resources with the police, and they
even work together on tough cases.
To a degree, that’s rare among
public and private organisations.
Galster is 57 and speaks in the
at tones of a native, Midwestern
American. He wears a no-nonsense
expression and tends to move
along in big, loping strides as if he
always has somewhere important
to get to. One a ernoon, he
introduces me to two ex-narcotics
agents on his sta : there’s “General
Eddy”, who became famous in law-
enforcement circles for arresting
the fugitive Russian arms dealer
Viktor Bout in 2008.
Next, I shake hands with
“Poolsub”, who helped gather the
evidence that puts Lemtongthai
behind bars. In addition to
the 20-odd people working
here in Bangkok, Galster also
employs former military and law
enforcement scattered around
Southeast Asia – including “Nile”,
a secretive character uent in
Vietnamese, who has spent
thousands of hours gathering
surveillance photos and video
footage of key Hydra players.
Galster’s rst glimpse of the
highest rungs of Hydra leadership
came over a decade ago. A wealthy
and secretive ai woman, whom
Galster has never named, led him
to a pair of poachers whom she
persuaded to divulge their secrets.
e men, Galster says, pointed
to the gure who stood atop the
organisation: Vixay Keosavang,
a former Laotian military o cer.
Soon a er that, Galster learned
the identity of Keosavang’s closest
friend and alleged partner in crime:
Bach Van Limh, a burly, gregarious
Vietnamese immigrant to ailand.
e two men lived opposite each
other on the Mekong River – Bach
on the ai side, Keosavang in
Laos. Bach’s alleged expertise was
in slipping contraband into the
country. ‘He had people based at
ports and airports; he had people in
northern ailand and in southern
ailand,’ Galster says. ‘He had
smugglers, people within the private
sector, and government o cers on
his payroll.’ Keosavang, for his >>“The scene at the Sriracha
Tiger Zoo is degrading and
depressing: tourists dangle raw
chickens from fishing poles
over a bleak pen where the cats
snarl and fight for the food”
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