K9 cops in weekend abalone bust
Port Alfred K9 members were on top form on Friday August 5 catching two vehicles in different incidents transporting abalone worth about R193,000.
The South African Police Service’s spokesperson Warrant Officer Nkohli Majola said the K9 Patrol teams had arrested two men an hour apart and seized abalone valued at R192,996.
In the first incident, on Friday 5 August at about 2.30am, Port Alfred police were patrolling the R72 when they spotted a suspicious vehicle, a white VW Golf TSI with a CA registration number. Their attempts to pull it over failed, and a highspeed chase ensued.
Moments later, the driver of the Golf lost control and the vehicle veered off the road.
The police arrested one of the occupants while the others escaped. Eight bags of abalone were found in the vehicle. The 467 units of abalone weighed 72.81kg and were valued at R131,058.
“[In] the second incident, members were busy at the scene when a second vehicle, a Toyota Starlet, disregarded police signals to stop and drove past at high speed,” Nkohli said.
“A high-speed chase ensued, and in an attempt to evade the arrest, the suspects’ vehicle drove into a dead end.”
The police found four bags full of abalone valued at R61,938.
Nkohli said the two men were arrested and detained for contravening the Marine Living Resource Act 18 of 1998 Reg 36 – illegal possession of abalone. He said that the two men aged 25 and 36 years old were expected to appear in the Port Alfred magistrate’s court on Monday.
This success followed the arrest of two men and the recovery of diving equipment valued R300,000 last Tuesday. The two had since appeared in court on charges of conspiracy to commit abalone poaching, he said.