Cattle thieves run riot in Kgatleng

Stock theft and cattle rustling in Kgatleng District are reported to be occurring at an alarming rate, with farmers reporting that there is no day that passes without them losing their livestock to criminals.

This has left farmers at sixes and sevens with many of them reporting that the criminals are so daring that they would even raid their kraals at night to steal anything they find from goats to sheep to donkeys not to mention cattle.

In other instances, farmers who went out to tend to their livestock in the veld were greeted by the familiar sight of the remains of their livestock mainly heads, offal and hides all pointing to the work of the thieves who operate at night and during the day.

Tono Pheko is a farmer from Artesia who reported coming across six heads of his cattle dumped in a makeshift kraal in the bush at Ditlading cattle post, a few days after the cows did not return to their kraal from grazing.

The sixty-year-old said he became suspicious when one of his cattle arrived back with a bloodstained rope tied to its neck.

“Our worst fears were confirmed when we followed the cow’s tracks until it led us to a kraal in the bush where the slaughtering of some of my cattle had apparently taken place,” he told The Monitor.

Pheko revealed that this was not the first time he lost his cattle to the marauding criminals. He said back in 2003, he lost 21 goats after only 24 of them had returned from grazing. As if that was not bad enough, Pheko said just recently in 2022 the thieves hit again and made away with 13 of his cattle.

“It is not just me {who is} faced with this situation, as another farmer recently lost 10 cattle to the thieves,” remembers Pheko.

While he commended the anti-stock theft police for doing a good job of stemming the tide of stock theft through the Kgomo-Khumo operation, Pheko was worried at the existence of repeat offenders who are notorious for prowling about stealing from farmers with impunity.

He blamed some butchery owners and vendors whom he said were providing a market for the illicit trade in stolen livestock.

Although no verifiable statistics were readily available, Assistant Commissioner of Police Dipheko Motube confirmed that cases of stock theft remained high in Kgatleng.