This young Israeli mercilessly tracks down of ivory and wildlife traffickers in Cameroon.  His organization dismantles up one network per week, in spite of death threats. A unique saga in Central Africa.

In the van, the air becomes stifling. 
Ofir Drori feels sweat running down his face.  Around him, large drops of sweat are also dropping from the twelve gendarmes’ faces. At this April ending, the muggy heat of Brazzaville had however nothing to do with it.  The reason for this was fear!  Deep fear of being attacked in these narrow streets by a gang of armed men. 

However, the young Israeli encourages his companions.  He keeps repeating to them that their duty obliges them to search the villa of the ivory trafficker who had been arrested downtown an hour earlier.  It is now six years since this man of fragile built, with a rather iron will, founded the LAGA organization (The Last Great Ape Organization), geared towards compelling the authorities to enforce the anti-poaching legislation. 

The van sharply brakes in front of the home of the trafficker.  Ofir glances nervously behind:  no car is following them.  "We have three minutes to seize the illegal goods.  Beyond this time, friends of the trafficker, informed on this, can attack us ", the former Israeli officer explained. 

The commando unit returns, safe and sound, with 40 kilos of ivory and skins, enough to send the trafficker to prison for  years, except... corruption.  This is because the Congolese arrested is not just anybody.  We are talking here about François Ikama, a famous sculptor and father of a businessman who is close or connected to the government in power.  While preparing the trap, Ofir had taken good care not to specify that to the gendarmes, for fear they could refuse to cooperate.  He was right for, when they learned his name some gendarmes wanted to release him immediately.  Where it not for a captain with a sense of duty, the operation would have been ruined. The following day, Ofir went to the prison himself to ensure that Ikama was there.  Already, a General had put pressure for him to be released...

(Picture 1: Ofir Drori during a seizure at a poacher’s shop)

This operation is the first that Ofir Drori has carried out outside Cameroon, where he founded LAGA in 2002.  Before his arrival, no conviction or sentence had ever been pronounced or passed in this country, in spite of a very strict regulation on wildlife protection.  In 2007, LAGA carried out 294 investigations resulting in 48 arrests. 
Among objects seized:  1,220 grey parrots at the Douala Airport (worth 800 000 dollars), a live Hippopotamus weighing 600 kilos bound for Pakistan, several hundreds of kilos of ivory, tens of Lion and Panther skins, but also hands and heads of Gorillas, and several baby Chimpanzees.  In 2006, LAGA made one of its most spectacular moves:  3.5 tons of ivory seized in Douala before their shipping to China. But customs officers let the Chinese traffickers to escape, benefiting from protection in very high places...  A total number of arrests unequalled in all of Africa, which earned LAGA world fame.  In June 2007, it received the most prestigious award, given by CITES
(Convention on the International Trade in Endangered fauna and flora Species).
 
A maverick - sniper activist.
On his return to Yaounde after his successful expedition in Brazzaville, Ofir received us in his apartment.  It is partitioned into two by a curtain.  On one side, there is his living area that he shares with his wife, a French primatologist; on the other side, his HQ, occupied, during the day, by a dozen Cameroonian members of his organization. 

Nothing to compare with the comfort of a Western NGO.  But this Israeli has always been a maverick.  In 2002, when he landed in Cameroon, it is now several years that he has been travelling all over Africa.  He has visited on foot innumerable tribes, from whom he requested for hospitality.  He slept in the heart of the countryside with lions.  He undertook to cross Africa with a camel.  “My anthem, is “My freedom ", by Moustaki ", he confides.  An enthusiastic defender of human right, admirer of both Gandhi and Che Guevara, he has travelled all over to refugee camps and zones of conflicts, writing articles about them in the Israeli press. 

Thus one fine day he lands in Cameroon to cover a story on bush meat trafficking. 
A sinecure, he believed. 

(Picture 2: Four assassinated gorillas found by anti-poaching rangers in the Virunga National Park in Congo are being examined)

In a village, a poacher proposed to him to buy a young female Chimpanzee for 100 000 CFA francs (150 euros).  " It was chained, prostrated. One would have thought it was a rat.  I rushed to the local representative of the ministry for Wildlife, but he answered me that he did not want to run into any trouble with poachers, and advised me to buy the chimpanzee in order to release it!  “Ofir remembers.  Scandalized, he returned to his hotel.  "In the night, I feverishly started to draw up an action plan for the fight against animal trafficking or dealing.  That was the program of LAGA! ". He went back to see the dealer, having made up his mind to snatch the animal from him.  He showed him the article of law which stipulates a three year prison sentence for illegal sale of a chimpanzee and made him believe that a vehicle had already left Yaounde to arrest him. 

"When I added that I could still stop the action if he gave me the animal, he made me a sign that he was in agreement " the bluff paid off, Ofir fled off with the chimpanzee on a motor bike, and named it Future.  His vocation of an activist was born. 

The early stages of LAGA were difficult.  Ofir had no money, did not know anybody and, especially, decided to stay off the beaten and sometimes dubious track of big Western NGOs.  He thus excluded giving the least bribe in a country where one had to give ten bribes per day.   We don’t have a Japanese 4WD vehicle and, especially, LAGA does not employ any foreigner who is first of all concerned about his professional career "
And bang! To WWF and others of that ilk!  Gradually, he gathered around him a team of Cameroonians motivated to stop at all cost the massive slaughter.  There is Marius, the student working with Pygmies, Julius, the police officer, Vincent, the former journalist, Josias, the history and geography teacher who wants to liberate  people from their ignorance, Eunice, the cleaning lady who became a student, Doma, the retired worker, Soné, who studied in the Netherlands...  It is a great family of which each member knows exactly his/her role.  Ofir is the ace of the organization.  There are investigators, who trap traffickers by pretending to be or passing themselves off as buyers; lawyers or jurists, who mobilize and assist the Cameroonian authorities throughout the legal procedure; and, finally, communicators, who immediately inform the press of least arrest.  " As soon as a case is mentioned on the radio or in the newspaper, that puts pressure on judges and police officers. As a result, they hesitate to fall prey to corrupt practices by traffickers ", crafty Ofir explains.  Today, LAGA is benefiting from official support of the Cameroon government.

His cell phone rings out.  A big smile brightens his face.  "He has been arrested! He presented himself at the bank just before the closing hours" he shouts around.  Everybody rushes to congratulate Soné, for it is he who is the instigator of this arrest. Among the investigators, he is in charge of flushing out illegal trafficking on the Internet. 

"A few days ago, I responded to an advertisement proposing the sale of a young chimpanzee.  The trafficker forwarded to me the copy of a CITES certificate that was obviously falsified.  This is a crime punishable by prison sentence. In order to trap him, I wrote to him that I had transferred the money he asked for to a Cameroonian bank which often works with us. "Since early morning, Kennedy, a lawyer with LAGA, two police officers and an agent of the ministry in charge of Wildlife had been watching the arrival of the falsifier to collar him.  This has been done.  At all the stages of the procedure, Kennedy has to make sure that no attempt at corruption takes place.  He will even go to see the criminal in his cell to check that he is actually there. 

Getting Africa out of its trouble. 
Ofir relentlessly stimulates his troops, obsessed by effectiveness or efficiency.  Each dime given by its financial backers or silent partners (the World Bank, Foreign Office, United Nations, etc.) must be properly used.  This emaciated man is endowed with extraordinary energy.  His struggle against poaching is for him just a first step in a much wider crusade which is aimed at getting Africa out of its trouble.  Not less...  With Marius, he created a second organization, intended to fight against corruption.  Definitely, the fellow is not afraid of anything.  Not even of death threats.

Besides, he encourages each member of LAGA to stand on their own two feet at the end of two or three years spent in the organization, to create their own NGO to defend women, underprivileged persons or any other causes, as long as it is about changing society.  " I am a missionary of activism ", he likes to repeat. 
From time to time, Ofir returns to see his first love, Future. The frightened baby chimpanzee has become a young female mischievous, living in a protected sanctuary.  In one or two years, it will be ready for the great return to the forest, in order to find a partner there.  Though deserted, Ofir will be the happiest of men.  Freedom above all. www.laga-enforcement.org. 

(Box)
Eunice in the land of horrors
When Ofir met Eunice, this young girl was earning her living as a cleaning lady.  He made her one of his best investigators.  In a moving text, she recounts how he got her involved in the business.  Extracts. 
"In the Bertoua market, I went to look for a woman selling bushmeat: monkeys, porcupines, wild pigs...  I asked her if she had tortoise to add to my soup.  She answered me that I had to wait for a week so that she could place the order to hunters.  She asked me whether I wanted only smoked meat or live ones too.  She told me that she could take me to a trafficker selling live gorillas. I told her that I was going to telephone to one white man to ask to him whether he needed a live gorilla"

After taking a stroll in the market, Eunice came back to see the saleswoman.  " The woman arranged the price of two baby gorillas for 120 000 CFA francs [ approximately
180 euros ].  I asked her to give them to me for 100 000 frs so that I could  make some profit  by reselling them to the white man "

The following day, Eunice and the woman set out for the village of the dealers or salesmen.  " she introduced  me to two traffickers who took me to a kitchen where the gorillas were locked up. 

They were very small and were embracing each other. There were five men to whom I explained that I came from Yaounde to buy smoked meat and that by chance I  met this nice woman who brought me to them I knew that they were suspecting me of being a spy, but I kept my courage.  I gave them my name and my telephone number (all fake). Their eyes were fixed on me, twelve pairs of eyes including those of the woman, to see whether I was a spy or a serious business partner.

Eunice ended up convincing them to deliver the two gorillas in Yaounde by bus so that Ofir could cause them to be intercepted on the way by the police force. 
"On seeing the police, the trafficker told me not to panic. For him, money solves all problems. He took the paperboard box, got out of the bus and placed it between his legs.  Nobody paid attention to him because of the darkness...  Ofir came to me and asked me in French:  "You, do you speak English?"  He asked the police to take me to a small room so that I can indicate to him where the gorillas were found....  In front of the salesman, Ofir continued to insult me and said that I will go to prison with my husband, calling me a thief...  I was trembling.
Of course this was a theatre to conceal the role of Eunice to the trafficker.  The latter was arrested and sentenced. The young Cameroonian girl had been successful in her baptism of fire.  Today, she is studying in England, where Ofir found a scholarship for her.
F L. 

Le Point Magazine - 29.5.08
Sciences - Portrait
by Frederic Lewino

Source: Le Point