forest elephant.png

Forest Elephant Mission: A Rebalance Earth Partnership Project

 

The poaching of elephants in Africa has a ripple effect that reaches around the world and impacts you and me. When forest elephants are killed for their ivory, the old growth forests that they garden lose much of the biodiversity upon which human life depends, along with the forest’s full capacity to protect us from climate change. 

Read More About The Problem and The Solution Here

BeirutExplosion.jpg

21 August 2020

The explosives factory that was meant to receive the Rhosus’ cargo also shares an address with ExploAfrica, a company co-owned by the Vieira family. Confidential corporate and government documents shared by the Conflict Awareness Project, a U.S.-based nonprofit, show that ExploAfrica and its affiliates were investigated by South African and Portuguese authorities for obtaining U.S. and Czech weapons that later ended up in the hands of rhino and elephant poachers in South Africa’s Kruger National Parks on the border with Mozambique.

​

Read the Article Here

Screen Shot 2019-04-24 at 4.59.12 PM.png

2019: Follow The Guns: An Overlooked Key To Combat Rhino Poaching and Wildlife Crime

A CAP Report by Kathi Lynn Austin

 

Four-year, six-country investigation implicates gunrunners and corrupt officials driving rhinos to the brink of extinction.

​

Download the Report

35886992_1882216848487896_23603293208130

Follow The Guns

On Sunday, June 24, 2018, Carte Blanche, a premiere African current affairs program, aired Follow The Guns, co-produced by CAP's Executive Director Kathi Lynn Austin. In the TV documentary, arms trafficking investigator Kathi Lynn Austin races against time to expose the suppliers and manufacturers of guns and bullets recovered at rhino poaching crime scenes.

​

Read More on Follow The Guns

KLA DRC.jpg

How to hunt down the world’s most dangerous arms dealers

Kathi Lynn Austin talks to Sarmishta Subramanian about the front line of the illicit weapons trade, where she fraternized with those who run it while gathering evidence to thwart their enterprise.

by Sarmishta Subramanian

Jan 15, 2020

​

Read the Interview Here

KATHI-LYNN-AUSTIN-POWER-OF-ONE-810x445-1

The woman who hunts illegal arms dealers: The Power of One, episode 3

Kathi Lynn Austin has targeted, investigated and helped to bring down some of the world’s most dangerous arms dealers—in some cases meeting them face-to-face.

by Macleans

Nov 22, 2019

​

 

Listen to the Podcast Here

 

News Feed
CAP's Mission

The Conflict Awareness Project (CAP) is an international non-profit dedicated to investigating, documenting, and bringing to justice major arms traffickers, war profiteering networks, and transnational criminal operations that fuel war, conflict, and natural resource exploitation around the globe.

 
Support our daily work and help bring major arms traffickers to justice, save lives, and help build a more just and peaceful world.
NYT FTG.jpg

How Did Rifles With an American Stamp End Up in the Hands of African Poachers?

 

The question is at the heart of investigations by Congress and federal agencies into whether an American gun manufacturer is entangled in the shadowy world of arms smuggling and wildlife poaching.

​

Read the Article

​

Times Article.jpg

Four-year probe cracks rhino-poaching gun racket

 

A gun manufacturer in the Czech Republic is implicated in flooding Africa with thousands of high-calibre hunting hunting rifles. Now poachers are even more deadly

Read the Article

The Pillage of Eastern Congo Gold:

A Case for the Prosecution of Corporate War Crimes

A CAP Briefing Report by Kathi Lynn Austin

​

Results of Ms. Austin's nine-year international investigation of an unlawful conflict gold enterprise originating in the eastern DRC. Foreign companies have taken advantage of armed conflict to make millions of dollars in illegal profit, while incentivizing war and widespread atrocities.

​

Download the Report

rhinoguns_HEADER_2580.jpg

She Hunted History’s Worst Arms Dealers. Now She’s Taking on Rhino Poachers.

Kathi Lynn Austin is on a global chase to stop the flow of guns threatening to wipe the rhinoceros off the face of the Earth.

 

Read the Narratively Story

Viktor Bout’s Gunrunning Successors

A CAP Briefing Report by Kathi Lynn Austin

​

In April 2012, convicted international arms trafficker Viktor Bout was sentenced to 25 years in a US prison on charges of terrorism. However, questions remained about the fate of his billion-dollar gunrunning network. CAP set out to investigate, and busted open a major weapons ring targeting Sudan, Congo and Syria.

 

Download the Report

Doc Film Follows the International Trail of "Dirty Gold"

 

Follow CAP ED Kathi Lynn Austin as she visits gold mines in DRC, collects evidence from smugglers in Uganda, and works to bring a legal case against Swiss processors and other parties.

​

Watch the free trailer or see the complete doc for a small fee, and support this important work.

​

Watch the Film

​

"A Short Film About Guns" Wins

Best Short at Tribeca

​

Directed by Minos Papas, the film features CAP founder Kathi Lynn Austin, former child soldier Ishmael Beah, war photographer Paul Conroy, and Rear Admiral (ret.) Stuart Platt, who recount their experiences with the black market trade in areas of conflict and how the unlawful flow of weapons across the globe facilitates loss of life and devastation.

​

View 2013 TFF Winners

 

​

UK Authorities Called to Act on “Blood Gold” Case Following Ruling

​

February 5, 2014 – A key ruling by the Swiss Federal Criminal Court gave momentum to a war crimes case against Swiss refining giant, Argor-Heraeus SA, alleged to have laundered millions of dollars of looted gold from the DRC. The three NGOs behind the case, call on the UK and Jersey Channel Island authorities to  swiftly investigate the two British firms that were the primary traders of the gold at issue.

​

Download the Media Release

 

UN and Control Arms Fete Passage of Landmark Arms Trade Treaty

​

CAP ED Kathi Lynn Austin was honored to be selected by Control Arms for inclusion in their 50 Celebrating 50 initiative, featuring photos and quotes from 50 political leaders, survivors, and campaigners who have worked to make the ATT a reality. The exhibit was displayed at UN headquarters in New York in Fall 2014, and is currently available for viewing online.

​

See the Exhibit

 

NY Times OP-ED: Stopping the

Trade in Death

​

CAP ED Kathi Lynn Austin discusses her role in helping put notorious international gun trafficker Viktor Bout behind bars, as well as the state of arms trafficking.

​

Read the Op-Ed 

 

​

INTERVIEW: Intl Weapons Trafficking Ring Exposed in Mauritius

​

CAP ED Kathi Lynn Austin speaks about an international gunrunning operation, centered in Mauritius, which was found to covertly transport weapons and ammunition into UN-sanctioned conflict zones. Austin discusses CAP’s investigation into this gunrunning ring, as well as the steps the government of Mauritius took to disrupt traffickers’ operations, launch its own investigation, and cooperate with other countries to prevent dealers from setting up elsewhere.

​

Listen to the Interview

 

 

INTERVIEW: Bongani Bingwa speaks to Kathi Lynn Austin, Executive Director of Conflict Awareness and Arms Trafficking investigator

​

Not much is known about small arms trafficking, a global industry worth billions of dollars that feeds into many criminal syndicates. One woman has been tracking the dangerous network of illegal weapons for over 20 years … and her recent three-year investigation has revealed a huge network of illegal firearms that supply poachers with guns in the Kruger.

Published Jun 25, 2018 2:30 AM

​

Listen to the Interview

REPORT: Corporate War Crimes: Prosecuting the Pillage of Natural Resources

​

Professor and CAP Board Member Emeritus James Stewart's guide provides a blueprint for prosecutors, advocates and others who wish to revive the prosecution of the war crime of pillage and hold accountable companies that illegally trade in conflict commodities.

​

Read the Report