Fiona Macleod
Five men were arrested in Midrand this week when they tried to sell a pair of rhino horns from an Mpumalanga game reserve to members of the police’s endangered species protection unit (ESPU).
The horns, which were microchipped, had been hacked off a male white rhino in Songimvelo provincial reserve on June 23.
A game ranger in the reserve, DS Nhlabathi, is alleged to have shot the rhino with Mpumalanga Parks Board weapons. He has been charged along with the alleged “mastermind” of the smuggling operation, Karate Khoza, a former prison warder who was in the prisons service for 35 years. A warrant is out for the arrest of a third suspect involved in killing the rhino.
The parks board’s special investigations unit worked with the ESPU to set up the five smugglers arrested this week.
Two of the smugglers drove to Midrand with their smelly cargo in the boot of their car. As they were negotiating a deal with the “buyer”, they discovered the real price was a pair of handcuffs and a list of their rights.
They then led the police to the other three suspects, causing a brief traffic jam on the highway to Kempton Park as some of the suspects tried to flee while another reached for the firearms stashed in their car. No shots were fired.
The ESPU has so far confiscated 15 rhino horns since the beginning of the year. Captain Mario Scholtz, leader of the investigating team, says he expects this number to increase: his information shows there are more rhino horns in circulation on the black market now than there were three months ago.
Scholtz recently warned members of the environmental crime task group in the Northern Province to prepare themselves for an expected “onslaught” on rhinos in reserves in the area.