On one afternoon in the autumn of 2015, outside the outskirts of Maputo, the capital of Mozambique,
, a woman wearing jeans and pedaling horse boots, raised a pistol and shot at the target in the distance. After a few bangs, a black man with a big gold chain hanging around his neck clapped.
Austin breathed a sigh of relief, but felt that her palms were sweating because this was the first time in her life that she demonstrated shooting in front of others....
Austin's identity at this time was an arms intermediary, and the black boss next to her was a famous local arms oligarch in Mozambique. In order to find out the source of the guns of the Mozambique rhino poaching molecules, she learned to shoot for the first time in her life.
Even this black boss could not imagine this "arms dealer" who is not skilled in using guns, but her real identity is United Nations senior weapons embargo expert. She has been engaged in combating smuggling arms for 30 years. She is a legendary figure who personally sent Viktor Bout, the prototype of "King of War" to prison...
Now, this retired weapons embargo expert has once again reappeared in order to protect the endangered rhino on the African continent. This time, her target is not one or two arms oligarchs, but those Western countries that sell weapons to African poachers...
Let's talk about the story of this legendary woman.
Austin was born in 1960 in the United States in , Virginia, and is the eldest of five children in the family. Although she was born in the United States where guns are legal, she had never been exposed to guns at all, and she never thought that she would become an arms expert in the second half of her life.
Austin at that time, he went to university step by step and chose to major in economics. After graduation, Austin applied for a job at the World Bank. She worked as a bank employee and worked until she was 29 years old.
In this year, Austin was sent by the World Bank to Angola, Africa, for a three-week business trip.
Unexpectedly, this less than a month of business operations completely changed Austin's life...
During a business trip in Angola, Austin became obsessed with the beautiful African continent and met the United Nations staff by chance. At that time, the United Nations lacked people who were willing to stay in Africa. Austin, who was determined to stay in Africa, immediately quit his job at the World Bank and applied for a job as an observer for the United Nations in South Africa. In the years since
, Austin has been stationed in southern Africa. She devoted herself to politics from the economic field, met many political leaders, and once became a witness to the drastic changes in Africa's history in the 1990s.
In 1994, Austin became the witness of the election of President Mandela, the first black president of South Africa. She is one of the few foreigners invited to attend the inauguration of Mandela... .
However, before the inauguration of Mandela in South Africa, Austin got shocking news from his colleagues.
Rwanda thousands of kilometers away, 10 Belgian backpackers who were traveling locally were murdered. Officials at the United Nations have evacuated, and a tragic genocide is taking place there! !
In the 100 days from April 6 to mid-June, Hutu genocides the Tutsi and Hutu moderates. A total of 800,000 to 1 million people died in scimitars, hoes, sticks and firearms across the country, accounting for more than 20% of the total population at that time.
This is the most horrifying massacre in the world since the Nazi concentration camp massacre. The speed of killing people is several times that of the Nazis using poison gas to kill Jews....
The situation coming from Rwanda at that time was extremely terrifying. Austin was shocked by everything she heard. She rushed to Rwanda at the first time regardless of her personal safety. When the car drove into Rwanda, the scene in front of her was unforgettable for her life. Wherever she went, she had broken limbs, countless women were raped and killed, and a real hell on earth....
Austin's white appearance and the identity of an observer of the United Nations became her temporary amulet, but she still could not guarantee absolute safety.
After arriving in Rwanda, Austin immediately began to investigate the situation. She quickly found out the ins and outs of the massacre and found the culprit. It was Colonel Théoneste Bagosora, a senior officer of the Hutu tribe in Rwanda who planned the murder!
At this time, she was unarmed and drove directly to the colonel's base camp of Colonel Théoneste Bagosora, sitting opposite Colonel Bagosora, facing a group of bodyguards holding submachine guns,
Austin was not scared. She calmed down, put on a smile, and calmly persuaded the terrifying butcher to issue an order to stop the killing. However, Colonel Bagosora was unmoved. He only told Austin indifferently that this so-called "clearing operation" was planned for 100 days....
Austin, who received this important news, wrote an observation report overnight and faxed it to United Nations headquarters as soon as possible.
She had only one idea, the United Nations should take action as soon as possible, pass a resolution, and send peacekeeping troops to stop the massacre. She described in the report:
"A person like Colonel Bagosora is extremely cold and self-centered. He does not consider the subsequent results at all. He will continue to do even if he is liquidated in the future. He must send peacekeeping troops to stop him immediately!"
However, this time, the United Nations disappointed the whole world. It has not taken action for a long time. At the United Nations headquarters in New York, The game of governance and the lengthy argument did not end until June 22. At this time, the massacre had ended, and 1 million living lives became dead souls under the knife....
, who witnessed all this with his own eyes, cried bitterly, and she was desolate for a long time. After the pain, she decided to believe that the reason for the massacre occurred was that there was a continuous stream of underground arms transactions. In Africa, many warlords dared to occupy the mountain and become king as the king as long as they had guns on their hands and opened the killing. To prevent the tragedy of Rwanda from reappearing, we must block the source of the influx of arms in Africa and seize the underground oligarchs who resell arms!
After the Rwandan massacre, Austin resolutely transferred to the United Nations arms embargo department. From then on, the investigation of underground arms dealers was started.
However, out of disgust with the tool of massacre, weapons, this weapon expert Austin set a rule for himself that he would never use a gun...
Not long after, the largest arms seller in the African continent, the prototype of the movie "King of War" starring Nicholas Cage Viktor, Viktor, the prototype of the movie "King of War" starring Nicholas Cage Bout was on Austin's list. In the 1990s alone, Bout dominated the underground arms trade of 6 million US dollars. The weapons he sold appeared in several major war zones such as Afghanistan , Liberia , Iraq , Congo , etc. The most speechless thing is the Congo civil war. The weapons of both sides of the war actually came from Bout himself....
Since he set his sights on Bout, Austin has not relaxed for a moment, and she has chased her several times. Following Bout's footsteps, he went to the war zone where he sold arms.
quickly figured out a fact that underground arms dealers like Bout are the same as many criminal groups. They try their best to expand their business scope, from warlords, drug lords, small countries' heads, and even terrorists. Bout is doing money-making business, and weaving a protection network. This protection network drags many big people involved in interests in the world. Therefore, the reason why Bout has been at large numbers of people who have been at large numbers for more than 10 years is due to the protection of the "big people".
However, Austin made up his mind that no matter how much resistance he encountered, he vowed to bring Bout, the "dead businessman", to justice. There is no reason why Austin has confidence. After all, at that time, the United Nations was behind her.
In 2004, she went through a lot of trouble and monitored that Bout had 26 weapons-filled planes transported to Congo. She quickly obtained the authorization documents from the United Nations and took the troops to the Congo jungle to intercept them.
Finally, at a simple airport in the Congo jungle, Austin intercepted Bout's plane with live ammunition and seized a large number of weapons on the plane. Among the 26 aircraft, only 6 were legally registered.After
Bout was arrested, and The US Drug Enforcement Administration also launched a related investigation into him. An underground arms oligarch who forged multiple identities to sell arms and drugs, opened a bag to launder money, and the famous " King of War " was overthrown by Austin!
Bout was later arrested and extradited back to the United States. He was sentenced to 25 years in 2012, and since then he began his long life in federal prisons in the United States....
defeated the world's most notorious arms dealers, and the African continent ushered in a period of peace.
However, as Bout said through Cage's mouth in "King of War":
"The root of world turmoil is not arms dealers like me, but those who sell weapons in the name of the country. They are the real 'king of war'..."
At first, Austin disagreed with this argument. When Bout was imprisoned, she was already in her 50s. As a senior United Nations weapon embargo expert, it was time to retire.
However, everything that happened two years later came true. In addition to him, there was a bigger boss, which also made Austin, the former UN arms embargo expert, choose to return to the world and embark on the journey to track down arms dealers again!
She never dreamed that this time, her opponent was much stronger than Bout...
During her tenure at the United Nations, Austin herself formed a non-profit organization NGO to provide support and help in protecting animals on the African continent.
In 2014, she came to the Kruger National Park reserve in South Africa, and was soon stunned by the current situation of this large nature reserve.
10 years ago, she has been busy pursuing underground arms dealers. Now she suddenly discovered that the nature reserve she was deeply obsessed with at that time has become a well-known "place of killing"...
Kruger National Park is the world's largest rhino nature reserve. However, in the seven years from 2007 to 2014, poaching incidents have gradually become rampant, from 13 in 2007 to 1,215 in 2014. Rhino, a rare species that survived the dinosaur era, may become extinct in just a few decades.
The situation in South Africa is even more terrible. Every 8 hours, a rhino is killed by poachers.
poachers use any means to obtain rhino horns. The crime trade volume of wild animals is as high as US$7 billion every year. The poaching activities are huge profits, and they are even targeted by many large criminal groups and terrorist organizations, and they all want to come in and get a share of the pie.
Austin soon discovered that the reason why poaching is so rampant was once again pointing to the field she was extremely familiar with - arms trafficking...
poaching and legal "sports hunting" both require a large number of guns and weapons, and the acquisition of sports hunting can often be obtained through legal channels.
Austin believes that many terrorist organizations and large criminal organizations are taking advantage of this because the export of weapons for "hunting" purposes is relatively loose. Some countries and arms dealers are likely to use the loose export of "hunting weapons" and are continuously importing arms into Africa. In fact, most of these arms have flowed into the hands of poachers. Austin exclaimed:
"This is the last piece of the arms system that needs to be regulated!"
Thinking of this, Austin is determined to go back again Coming out of the mountain to track down the source of the poachers' arms, so the scene at the beginning of this article was born:
In the autumn of 2015, this legendary weapon embargo expert found that the difficulty of the matter was far beyond her imagination. This was a brand new arms supply chain. She had to start from scratch. In order to find out the bottom line of the poachers in Mozambique and find out their arms source, she decided to personally pretend to be an arms dealer to go undercover. In order not to arouse suspicion, she gave up the principle of "never touch a gun" for 30 years and conducted two weeks of gun special training.
In this way, she successfully gained the trust of the Mozambique arms oligarchs.
went through many troubles, and she finally found out the basic situation:
These local arms oligarchs did not have too much contact with poachers, but the black boss only provided an important clue
- the poachers' guns seemed to come from legal channels...
Not long after, a poaching incident occurred again on the border between South Africa and Mozambique. Several rhinos were killed. Austin quickly went to investigate. At the poaching site, she and the patrol team in the national park found the killed rhino. For more than 20 years, she has witnessed all the dark side of the African continent from humans to animals, but her dream of pursuing light has never been destroyed.
Austin silently watched the patrol dissect and bury the rhino, and then began to investigate....
The patrol first found the shells left on the scene. After identification, these bullets belonged to the .357 and .458 models respectively. This is a very powerful bullet that can knock down an adult rhino in just one shot.
In the past, poachers used weapons like AK-47, and it was not easy to find out the source. However, because the AK-47 gunfire was too loud, it was easily discovered by the anti-poaching patrol team. So in recent years, poachers began to upgrade their weapons and purchased rifles that could install high-quality mufflers. After
, they found a discarded magazine and found a very important clue from it:
Czech military factory manufacturing....
Austin, with his keen intuition, immediately went to the local police station and asked to check the guns handed over by the poachers they had caught before.
After the police opened the vault, Austin suddenly discovered that all of these guns had silencers without exception. More importantly, according to the patterns above, they were all made in Czech guns, and there were many new brands that they had never seen before!
Austin has enabled tireless weapon tracking and analysis. This work is as boring as intelligence analysis, but it is what Austin is most willing to do. She established a database for these guns and registered all the serial numbers.
After all the serial numbers were entered, she grabbed and made a curve. After the curve chart jumped out, Austin suddenly discovered that the serial numbers of
were compared and arranged very close. They were probably the same batch of firearms from the factory, and they might even arrive in Africa on the same freighter...
In the next two years, Austin started to hunt arms dealers.
She began to trace the origin of smuggling merchants to middlemen and manufacturers based on clues of weapons left by poachers in Kruger National Park.
She began to travel back and forth between several continents, from Prague to Las Vegas, from Lisbon to Mozambique....
By his past experience and familiarity with this circle, sometimes pretending to be a buyer and sometimes pretending to be a poacher. She took her team of hidden cameras to record the conversation between her and protected areas experts, arms dealers, middlemen, and brokers.
She also appeared at the "European Entertainment Weapons Trading Fair" held in Germany to find suspects who may provide weapons to poachers.
She took the initiative to talk to many suspects, and most of them avoided her. However, she was reluctant to leave and still went to the exhibition to find someone every day.
Finally, a Czech businessman who claimed to be stationed in Africa and Austin got in touch. After hearing Austin's purpose, he agreed to chat for a few words. However, he refused to communicate on the phone, but instead made an appointment to meet in the cafe.
Austin used the camera hidden in his bag to record the conversation between the two. The seller told her:
"The Czech government never exports weapons that are not approved and authorized, and we will never do business that is not allowed to do... However, I do not deny that some people take advantage of loopholes, and I will click on some words."
However, Austin refused to give up. She insisted on finding the manufacturers of those weapons. The Czech merchants thought for a long time and finally agreed to meet in another place.
A few weeks later, in a town more than 200 kilometers from Prague, the Czech businessman gave Austin a note of information she wanted, the gun manufacturer used by poachers on the border of the Mozambique!
After hardships, Austin finally found the manufacturer. She took out her laptop and showed the serial numbers of the series of poachers' guns to the person in charge.
"Is this the gun you made?"
However, the man replied calmly:
"I know Kruger Park found that the poachers' weapons in Mozambique were made by us, but we did not participate. We do not know any poachers, let alone involve it. However, we can provide you with information about all first-hand buyers, and there is nothing to hide."
He then stated that according to Czech law, as manufacturers, they are irresponsible for the final flow of weapons. After the first transaction, they no longer care about what happens later.
He even added that perhaps many guns were stolen from our customers by poachers, and our customers did not sell guns to them.
's answer made Austin extremely angry. She almost yelled at the Czech manufacturer:
gives poachers 90% to 95% of the weapons, from you! !
The other party still answered calmly:
"Sorry, we have nothing to do with poachers."
Austin left angrily. She vowed that no matter how much the price it costs, she must find the person who sent the weapons to the poachers...
However, after a more in-depth investigation, she discovered an extremely complex supply chain.
guns were made in the Czech Republic. After a big circle, they went to the underground arms market in the United States to make a deal, and finally flowed into Mozambique through Europe.
. Some corrupt officials in Mozambique participated in it and got the guns in the name of legality, but they unconsciously distributed them to poachers. Finally, these poachers appeared on the border between Mozambique and South Africa, poaching and killing precious rhinos again and again!
In October 2015, she finally found out the transportation route of the guns and found that these Czech-made guns were transported to Mozambique through Portugal.
Austin flew to Lisbon quickly and made a report to the local police for 5 hours, hoping that they could obey their investigation results and immediately dispatch police forces to intercept a ship loaded with Czech guns to Mozambique!
However, this time, Austin has no endorsement from the United Nations, and without this strong backing, the Portuguese police do not listen to Austin at all.
They said that unless Austin provides official documents, phone calls, and emails in South Africa, they are not enough to send police forces to stop a freighter ship to Africa.
This is the most isolated and helpless time in Austin's life. She stood in the harbor, looking at the big ship full of arms about to leave, and she was crying without tears.
What she thought of was that the guns in this ship would soon flow to the hands of Mozambique poachers. One day in the future, these guns and bullets will appear at the scene where the rhino was killed...
However, at this moment, these killing weapons were right in front of her, but she was completely powerless to stop them!
At that moment, she suddenly thought of Bout's words again:
"There are bosses bigger than me in this world..."
...
Austin still did not give up. She chose to fight to the end. She decided to mobilize the power of public opinion to fight against this complicated and powerful arms supply chain.
In June 2018, the documentary "Follow the guns" that disclosed the source of the arms of poachers in Kruger National Park was aired in South Africa, causing a sensation in the global media.
In October 2018, Austin submitted an investigation report to the House of Representatives' non-US Activities Investigation Committee, urging the United States to launch an investigation into relevant leading arms dealers, blocking the arms transactions between American middlemen and Mozambique, Africa...
This series of actions has indeed been effective. Public opinion has reported extensively. After the US investigation was launched, Mozambique launched a relevant investigation this spring under pressure and "clean up and clean up" officials involved in poaching in government departments!
The Czech Republic and Portugal originally planned to launch an investigation, but because South Africa has not cooperated and has not filed a case for a long time, Austin said that if there is something wrong with it, she will continue to investigate to the end...
"I don't say everything, but at least some anti-poaching troops are making profits. It seems that the only way to win the 'Rhino War' is to stop the most important part of it, the part that can gain benefits."
Austin's action takes Having achieved partial success, at least this year, poachers in Mozambique will find it difficult to obtain weapons again. The rhino in the
protection zone is temporarily safe...
However, in Austin's view, everything is far from over. Her goal is to bring all rhino poachers to justice and make the whole world recognize that the supply chain of selling arms to poachers has become an organized violent crime. It involves many interest groups and even has connections with terrorist organizations, seriously threatening the security of European countries in the sector.
Speaking of this, she once again couldn't help but think of the "King of War" Viktor Bout:
The biggest boss is far more than him...
Ref:
https://narratively.com/she-hunted-historys-worst-arms-dealers-now-shes-taking-on-rhino-poachers/
https://explorers.org/ events/detail/the-black-market-world-of-rhino-poaching-kingpins-with-kathi-lynn-austin
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kathi_Lynn_Austin
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