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Kimon de Greef

I am a freelance journalist and researcher from South Africa. My work has appeared in The New Yorker, The New York Times, The Guardian, Guernica, National Geographic and other publications. I coauthored a book about abalone poaching and have written widely on illicit trades. I have a conservation biology masters from the University of Cape Town and a journalism masters from New York University. I am currently at work on a book for Doubleday about psychedelic toads.

Some recent stories involved a Syrian raccoon trapper in New York, the rise and fall of a charismatic toad-smoking evangelist, the rivalrous underworld of songbird smuggling (featured by NPR) and the harmful supply chain for white sage. I have also written about gang violence, corruption, food delivery work, diamond mining, racing pigeons, sea cucumbers and donkey rustling.

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