Men had permits for stash of rhino horn

While lauded as biggest bust ever, their attorney says it’s all a ‘mistake’

The two men caught with 167 rhino horns at the weekend had permits for the haul and were only 10km out of the designated area where they were allowed to transport the products.

This is according to attorney Alwyn Griebenow, who is representing Clive John Melville, 57, of Port Elizabeth, and Petrus Stephanus Steyn, 61, of Modderfontein.

The haul has been lauded as the biggest bust recorded and was believed to be destined for Asia.

The two have been remanded until April 26 when they will apply for bail.

They were arrested on Saturday in the Hartbeespoort Dam area, north of Pretoria, following a tip-off.

Police said the rhino horns, worth a “substantial amount of money”, were destined for the Southeast Asian markets.

Demand for rhino horn is primarily fuelled by consumers in China and Vietnam, where it is advertised by some traditional medicine practitioners as a wonder ingredient.

In reality, rhino horn is comprised of little more than keratin, the same protein that makes human hair and nails.

Nonetheless, a horn can fetch up to $60,000 (R840,000) per kilogram in Asia, stoking lucrative transnational crime networks that have decimated rhino populations in recent decades.

Griebenow described his clients as “poor, innocent guys”.

“They were arrested for rhino horns that came from poaching but they had permits for all of them.

“They were just 10km outside the radius they were allowed to travel in. It was just a mistake.”

Melville ran Algoa Bay Drums and Cans and C U Diving Charters in Port Elizabeth – with the former business having been sold by Melville and other shareholders in the business about a month ago.

Griebenow said Melville spent half the year in Port Elizabeth and the rest in Pretoria.

Hawks spokesperson Brigadier Hangwani Mulaudzi could not be reached for comment.

The planned sale of horns by private rhino owners is for domestic trade only, according to a Constitutional Court judgment in April 2017.

The domestic trade in rhino horn is subject to the issuance of the relevant permits in terms of the National Environmental Management: Biodiversity Act of 2004.

In terms of the Act, a permit is required to possess, transport and trade in rhino horns and any derivatives or products of horn.

After the ruling, the department of environmental affairs developed an electronic database that captured extensive details on all individual rhino horns in private and government-owned stockpiles, along with all newly-acquired horns.

Through this, the department intends to ensure every horn is tagged with a micro-chip, that DNA testing has been conducted on the horn, and that all horn is measured, weighed, marked and captured on the national database.

South Africa, which is home to about 80% of the world rhino population, has been hit hardest.

In 2018, 769 rhinos were poached in SA alone. More than 7,100 animals have been killed over the past decade.

The country is also home to the world’s largest privatelyrun rhino farms.

Breeders harvest the horns by tranquillising the animals and cutting them off – a technique they say is humane and wards off poachers. Photographs circulated in the media after the weekend seizure show horns with markings indicating weight and others that appear to be registration numbers.

“These suggest the horns came from a stockpile of some kind, possibly a private stockpile,” said Julian Rademeyer, a project leader at Traffic, the international wildlife trade network.

He said the way the horns had been cut looked as though it had been done professionally with an electric saw, and were not from poached animals.

An insider with close ties to Melville and intimate knowledge of the origins of the horn, said on Wednesday the pair, “had all the permits and the horn was legitimately harvested from a rhino owner who has the largest number of privatelyowned rhino in SA”.

“There is nothing untoward that has happened. The horn in most cases is harvested from the animals by simply shaving about two inches off the horn.

“This [arrest] is simply a technicality. They had travelled about 10km out the geographical radius allowed by the permit,” said the insider, who did not want to be named.

“These guys are very passionate about rhino; they love these animals.

“The export of the horn is not permitted and the horn was not being exported.”

They were arrested for rhino horns that came from poaching but they had permits for all of them