Court sees video clip of perlemoen
A VIDEO clip of what appears to be perlemoen being weighed was viewed by a court yesterday after it was retrieved from a cellphone confiscated from the house of an alleged syndicate leader.
Investigating officer Captain Kanna Swanepoel said the Blackberry was seized by police when Julian Brown, 32, was arrested in June last year.
Swanepoel said the recording was then retrieved by the SA Police Service’s cyber crime unit.
Brown, Eugene “Boesman” Victor and Brandon Turner were nabbed last year on allegations that they were members of a lucrative poaching enterprise.
All pleaded not guilty to charges which include racketeering.
Turning to the excessive wealth of Brown – the alleged syndicate head – Swanepoel told the Port Elizabeth High Court that even before he started his construction company last year, and while he was reportedly unemployed, Brown was able to drive around in a Ferrari California worth R1.8-million.
“The man in the street cannot afford a Ferrari, and he was unemployed at the time. The money must have come from somewhere,” Swanepoel said. Brown now owns J&B Construction. He said when Brown was arrested by the Hawks during a pre-dawn raid on June 28 last year, several cellphones were confiscated from his South End home.
Taking the court through the video clip as it played on the overhead projector, Swanepoel said a person could be seen pouring from what appeared to be a bag of perlemoen. At the same time, the perlemoen was being weighed.
Defence advocate Terry Price SC, meanwhile, continued to criticise Swanepoel for the way in which he had filled out the search warrants which ultimately led to the arrests of the three men.
While the court agreed that the majority of the warrants were invalid, Judge Mandela Makaula ruled on Monday that the state could proceed to lead the evidence surrounding the search and seizures.
The trial continues today.