WATCH: 48 poachers caught
|Published
JACKPOT: Cops net group with 142kg illegal abalone JACKPOT: Cops net group with 142kg illegal abalone
Cops have dealt the illegal perlemoen trade a heavy blow by nabbing a gang of Forty- Eight alleged poachers.
The arrests were made after the skelms apparently drove more than five hours from their hometown, to be caught at Keursboom beach, near Plettenberg Bay.
Police say the 48 suspects, aged between 22 and 55, are from Gansbaai, located 453 kilometres from Keursboom.
Officers attached to the Mossel Bay Sea Border Unit and park rangers from the Garden Route National Park were collaborating on an intelligence-driven operation to bring poachers to book and hit the jackpot at last Thursday.
In a video made by one of the officers, which has since gone viral on social media, cops can be seen marching the group of men, who had diving equipment and abalone on them when they were spotted and caught along the rocky shoreline in the afternoon.
It appeared the suspects are not strangers to authorities as the official can be heard saying: “46 duikers, almal van Pearly Beach.”
Pearly Beach is a 20-minute drive from Gansbaai.
MOERSE CATCH: Cops march 48 skelms up the shoreline at Keursboom
The person recording the video walks along the line of suspects to get each one on camera.
The suspects are not dressed in wetsuits, but casual pants, hoodies and jackets, carrying oxygen tanks on their backs, bags of abalone and other diving equipment.
The person recording asks a police officer as he walks past the suspects : “Het die mense met ‘* f***en bus gekom?”
Southern Cape Police spokesperson, Malcolm Poje, confirms the arrests and says police confiscated diving equipment and more than 140kg of perly.
Authorities are now investigating whether the men are part of a syndicate.
“Upon searching the bags they found 142 kilograms of abalone,” says Poje.
“They subsequently arrested the 48 suspects and confiscated their diving equipment as well as the abalone.
VIDEO: Supplied
“Preliminary investigation into this case reveals that the suspects, aged between 22 and 55, hail from Gansbaai.
“It’s believed that they gained entrance to the park through a private property.”
He says the group will appear in the Plettenberg Bay Magistrates’ Court today facing charges of illegal possession of abalone under the Marine Living Resources Act of 1998.