 Blackstone Publishing Presents Animals By Will Staples This book is read by Dion Graham. This is a story about animals, some of which happen to be human. Preface. Although wildlife trafficking is one of the largest illicit markets in the world, alongside narcotics, arms dealing, and human trafficking, very few law enforcement dollars are dedicated to investigating wildlife crimes. Thus, very little is actually known about how animals are trafficked. And most of the news stories about wildlife crimes, centered on poaching in Sub-Saharan Africa, are on the ivory markets of East Asia, with virtually no attention given to the dark underworld of corruption and organized crime that is driving the end of wildlife as we know it. It would be like knowing nothing about the drug war, except that cocaine is produced in the jungles of South America and consumed in nightclubs in Los Angeles. While the story you are about to hear is fictional, the characters, locations, and story points are almost entirely rooted in fact. They are the products of hundreds of conversations with everyone from Dr. Jane Goodall to rangers in Africa, CIA officers, epidemiologists, and detectives in Hong Kong. To experience the issue first hand, I journeyed to seven countries on three continents. During the Southeast Asia section of the trip, where I was aided by Swiss environmentalist Carl Amman, I purchased rhino horn and tiger parts in the black markets of Myanmar. Was offered sauteed tiger meat, later confirmed by DNA tests, in a casino in Laos. Infiltrated tiger and bear bile farms went undercover as a buyer in the largest illegal rhino carving operation in Hanoi. Visited doctors prescribing tiger and rhino as a cure for cancer, and was detained by a warlord's security force in Special Region 4 of Myanmar for documenting wealthy tourists sneaking over the border to eat endangered animals. I then traveled to Hong Kong and Macau, where I met with officers from the organized crime and triad bureau in the Hong Kong narcotics bureau to learn how the cartels, traffic animals, and how they used casinos to launder the money from those transactions. The final leg of the trip took me to South Africa in Mozambique, where I spent a week living out of a pickup truck with Damien Mander, founder of the International Anti-Poaching Foundation, after whom my son is named. Damien introduced me to rangers in Kruger Park, and took me to a court trial for a corrupt ranger who was colluding with poachers. We joined rangers as they intercepted a group of three teenage poachers with a massive suppressed rifle, and an axe, who were searching for a rhino. We then headed to private hunting reserves catering to Russian and American... Sample complete. Ready to continue?