PLETTENBERG BAY NEWS - The book, Hunting With The Hawks, untold stories from the elite South African crime-fighting unit, was the centre of attraction at Sky Villa in Plettenberg Bay on 9 October.
The presentation of the book formed part of property company Pam Golding's Festival of Books series, which has, for the first time, been presented in Plett.
Gordon Shutte, Principal of Pam Golding Knysna and Plettenberg Bay, said the launch was part of the series the company presented annually. Shutte said the dates for next year's festival in Knysna had already been set for 7 to 9 March 2025.
The Directorate for Priority Crime Investigation, commonly known as the Hawks, a special branch of the South African Police Service, investigates organised crime, economic crime, corruption, and other serious crime referred to it by the president or another division of the police.
Successes of the Hawks
Graham Coetzer, author, investigative journalist and inset producer at Carte Blanche, lifted the lid on 10 big investigations that revealed the successes of the Hawks, along with some personal anecdotes of what was involved in these investigations.
Hunting With The Hawks, while exposing the deviousness of South Africa's dangerous criminals, is also an ode to the hard work and dedication of the best of our police service, while at the same time humanising the Hawks.
Organised crime
The book addresses the main types of crime they tackle - human trafficking, targeted assassination and murder, cash heists, illegal mining and poaching - but the main emphasis is on the scourge of organised crime.
Natural resources are all too often the target. As Coetzer says, none of this illegality would be possible without insider assistance and widespread corruption.
His fellow presenter, former Hawks investigator (retired) Colonel Gideon Jones, gave a glimpse into the secretive world of the Hawks - and some of the lengths investigators had to go to to infiltrate crime syndicates that included rhino horn smuggling.
Special agents
Jones also gave the profile of these special agents and how they had to, almost, live the life of their undercover personality, without back-up and without electronic surveillance equipment, to ensure them not being exposed for what they were doing.
"They are not armed, not wired … and go in there alone. They have to live out a role and create strategies to protect themselves, as they went along," said Jones.
'Trying their best'
Coetzer agreed it was a "positive" book that recognised policemen investigating nefarious activities for "trying their best".
"I felt it was time to give credit where credit was due," said Coetzer. Jones said some officers in the Hawks had a workload of over 200 cases dockets to contend with, highlighting the fact that the legal system was inundated. He added: "We should be a police force, not a police service."
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