Maybe this is not relevant to PC, but I thought it was such a well-written article of scientific detective work:

it's in the July issue of Scientific American, and is about ivory poaching by killing African elephants. Using DNA evidence they were able to pinpoint a small area in southeast Africa where the most of the poaching took place that supplied the illegal ivory. The Japanese were not cooperative in their investigation. They were able to surmise that a large criminal outfit was involved, not just small groups taking advantage of the situation, and with lots of money changing hands and lots of officials on the take. An online version can be found at

http://www.scientificamerican.com/ar...ivory-poachers