Rustlers rule in poverty-stricken area
Sente Abel Mahini knows a thing or two about stock theft. He spent more than a decade stealing sheep and cattle from neighbouring farms.
He was arrested and spent seven years in jail, but says he understands why people are driven to it.
Now reformed, Mahini lives in Fateng-Tse-Ntsho, a township in Paul Roux in the eastern Free State where the two men accused of murdering farm manager Brendin Horner also live.
Police believe Horner was killed after he stumbled across the men stealing livestock.
Suspect Sekwetje Isaiah Mahlamba has a pending case of livestock theft, scheduled to be heard in court next February. His co-accused, Sekola Piet Matlaletsa, has in the past been convicted twice for stock theft.
Mahini, 59, said many people in the area resort to rustling due to a lack of job opportunities in the farming town and the abundance of cattle and sheep on surrounding farms.
“When people struggle to find work, they starve. Someone like me stole for a living to survive and that is wrong,” Mahini said.
He said some stock thieves were willing to kill in pursuit of their crimes. “Some of these guys become dangerous.”
Farming is all Mahini has known. He began working on a farm in the 1990s.
The father of eight said he was given a small farm by the government in 1996 and started off with a few cattle on his land.
“I was praying for a farm and wanted to be rich like the white people, so God answered my prayers and he gave me a farm,” he said.
But with hardly any livestock, Mahini’s life was not as he had envisioned, and he turned to filling his kraal with cattle stolen from other farmers.
“I didn’t do a lot of work on the farm because I only stole the cattle of the white people, then I would sell these or keep a few on my farm.”
Rustling by moonlight
Mahini said he would hire a bakkie and go to neighbouring farms at night. “During the day, I would scout where the cattle are kept and I would open the fence very carefully, not cut it, because I knew they would notice.”
He said he could steal between three and five animals a night. He mostly targeted farms just outside the Paul Roux district.
“I didn't take a lot because I was operating alone.” He sold most of the animals he rustled at auctions, where the cattle sold for between R2,000 and R4,000 a head.
In 1996, a farmer caught him stealing sheep. Mahini said he had taken about 30, but the farmer was not sure of the number and the case was removed from the roll. He said the farmer also struggled to prove his case because his sheep did not have identifying ear tags.
Mahini said as news spread about what he was doing, people approached him, wanting to work with him. In the early 2000s Mahini said he and his accomplices stole 23 sheep and took them to auction in Johannesburg.
“The police set up a trap and told the auctioneers to be on the lookout for me. I didn’t go myself but sent my group. They eventually found out the sheep were stolen and the owner came forward to identify them,” he said.
While the case was still under way, he was arrested in Ficksburg in 2010 with a truck full of stolen cattle. In 2013 he was sentenced to 10 years for multiple cases of stock theft. He was released in June this year and now breeds goats for a living.
Mahini said he had turned his life around during his time in jail. “I was a stock theft guy, but now I am a Christian and God changed me to guide the people. I must help the people and pray for the people. I was a criminal but now God changed my life.”