part, excelled in actually moving
the product throughout Asia a er
it landed in Laos. He was aided
in this enterprise, Galster says, by
the import-export rms he ran
across the river from Bach – legal
businesses that are thought to have
helped function as clearinghouses
for illegal animal parts. He also
owned several grim “zoos” in
Laos, private menageries where
an assortment of animals were
raised for slaughter. Here, tigers,
macaques, and other animals
were allegedly held and then
processed for shipment.
At the height of their business,
in around 2013, Keosavang and
Van Limh were said to be moving
some 270 000kg of wildlife parts
a year –including 18 000kg of live
turtles, 9 000kg of live snakes,
2 700kg of lion and tiger bones,
68 000kg of pangolin scales, and
unknown quantities of elephant
tusks and rhino horn. ey were
earning billions of rand each year
and using the proceeds to buy
houses, hotels, expensive vehicles,
and frequent trips together to
Pattaya, the ai beach resort
famed for its sex industry.
But in around 2014, Keosavang
faded from the scene, seemingly
done in by negative publicity
from the arrest and guilty plea of
Lemtongthai, the architect of the
faux rhino hunts in South Africa.
at year, Galster says, Van Limh
also abruptly dropped out of view,
returning to northern Vietnam.
Perhaps he felt the walls beginning
to close in. But wildlife contraband
was still moving through the usual
routes, leaving Galster to wonder:
who could be running Hydra now?
One night in Nakhon Phanom,
where authorities were surveilling
a group of suspected drug
tra ckers, an agent broke into
the trunk of a suspect’s vehicle.
As he did, he caught the odour of
urine and animal parts – a sign
that the group might be moving
wildlife as well. Galster was shown
surveillance photos of some of the
suspects and their associates, he
says, and ran their names. ey
matched those of traders who had
worked with Lemtongthai. Galster
also noticed something familiar
in the photos, speci cally the
eyebrows and facial features of one
of the men: he looked remarkably
similar to the exiled Van Limh.
In their bid to determine who
was in charge of Hydra, Galster’s
team had, for months, been circling
six shadowy gures. A er analysing
Facebook data, depositions, and
these new surveillance photos,
Galster realised, in 2015, that he
wasn’t, in fact, chasing six ghosts.
He and his team were pursuing
only one. e names were aliases
of a single person: a baby-faced
resident of Nakhon Phanom named
Boonchai Bach. He was the youngerbrother of Van Limh – and he
had apparently been anointed
as his successor.SOON AGENTS WERE
scouring Nakhon Phanom, hunting
for Bach’s headquarters. en, on
11 December 2017, a er two years
in pursuit, Galster says, customs
agents at Bangkok’s Suvarnabhumi
Airport received an alert that
a Chinese national suspected
of being a courier for wildlife
tra ckers would be arriving on
a ight at midday. e customs men
intercepted his suitcase before it
reached the carousel – and found,
wrapped in plastic, 14 rhino horns
cut into 65 pieces. e shipment
had a street value of more than
R14 million. e o cers sent the
luggage to baggage claim and waited
to see what would happen next.
ey watched the Chinese man
pluck the suitcase o the carousel
and then stroll to the nearby o ce
of Nikorn Wongprajan, a longtime
airport quarantine o cer. is was
strange, they thought. e agents
approached Wongprajan’s o ce;
and there, stashed inside a locker,
was the rhino horn.
Wongprajan – panicky and
desperate to spare himself – agreed
to help the police continue to follow
the horn. e authorities trailed
Wongprajan and watched as he
passed the package to one of Bach’s
relatives. e cops swooped in.
About a month later,
General Eddy and Poolsub
interviewed Wongprajan at
Samut Prakan Provincial Prison,
on the outskirts of Bangkok. An
o cer accompanied them. At
rst, Wongprajan denied any
connection to Hydra, says Galster.
en Poolsub pulled out photosobtained by Freeland showing
Wongprajan and Lemtongthai
together beside a dead rhino in the
bush. Wongprajan, it looked like,
had been Lemtongthai’s crony and
plant at the airport –expediting
delivery of rhino horns from the
fake hunts in South Africa to
Bangkok. With Lemtongthai in
prison, Wongprajan had allegedly
established new relationships in
Hydra. ‘We know you know this
guy. You went to South Africa to
see him,’ Poolsub said. Wongprajan
confessed. en Poolsub showed
him a photo of Bach.
‘Was this the guy you were
selling rhino horn to?’ the o cer
pressed. ‘Yes,’ he replied. ‘Write
it down.’ According to Galster,
Wongprajan scribbled a note
naming Bach as the sponsor of the
rhino-horn-smuggling operation- and signed Bach’s photo. ‘I’ve got
what I need,’ the o cer said. en
he issued a warrant for Bach’s arrest.
On the a ernoon of 18 January
2018, ai provincial police
apprehended the suspected Hydra
kingpin near Nakhon Phanom and
shipped him to Bangkok. Soon,
probably dazed and in disbelief,
Bach found himself inside a cell at
Suvarnabhumi Airport, charged
with wildlife tra cking.
ONE EVENING EARLIER
this year, I went with Galster to
northeastern ailand, to the
epicentre of Hydra’s illicit empire in
the river town of Nakhon Phanom.
At night, from the bank of the
Mekong, we could hear the pulsing
of pop music across the water, in
Laos. I could also make out the
putter of a motorised longboat
slipping through the currents
carrying who-knows-what – tiger
parts, maybe, or methamphetamines
or any of the innumerable
commodities that journey stealthily
through this part of Asia under the
cover of darkness. ‘ ey always
move at night,’ Galster said.
Shortly before we arrived in
Nakhon Phanom, Wild Animals
Checkpoint agents just down the
river in Mukdahan seized 182
baskets containing 2 730 rat snakes
and cobras as they were about to be
ferried out of ailand and into Laos.
While we moved along the city’s
riverfront promenade, Galster
pointed out Bach’s apartment
building, which is believed
to have provided convenient88 / SEPTEMBER 2019 gq.co.za