Men who took perlemoen loot off beach receive suspended sentences
Four men have admitted to being in illegal possession of perlemoen — but all claimed they happened upon the loot while spending time at the Three Pools Campsite near Willows in June last year.
A total of 1,689 units of perlemoen were confiscated by the police at the time.
Athinkosi Bidla, 26, Eldrich Aylward, 46, Justin Killian, 25, and Shaakir George, 23, all pleaded guilty to contravening the Marine Living Resources Act in the Gqeberha regional court yesterday.
They claimed in their respective pleas that they had been enjoying a day at the beach when they came across bags containing perlemoen.
They said they had then decided to take the illegal stash to Killian’s residence as no-one knew what to do with it.
According to Bidla, the bags were pointed out to him by Killian, who had asked him to help load them into a car driven by George.
Aylward claimed to have come across the bags at the same time as Killian, but initially wanted to leave them on the beach.
He later assisted his friends to load them into the vehicle.
Killian, in his plea, confirmed Bidla and Aylward’s versions, and confirmed that Moses Gqola, 34, and Justin Jantjies, 30, who had been with them at the time, had distanced themselves from what was going on.
Charges against Jantjies and Gqola were later withdrawn by the state.
They had all been arrested on June 8 last year after a highspeed car chase through the streets of Central.
All four men in court claimed that after they had loaded the perlemoen into the car, they were chased by a private vehicle.
Assuming that they were being pursued by poachers, who wanted their perlemoen, the men continued driving until police joined in the pursuit which ended in Strand Street
It later emerged that the private vehicle chasing them belonged to Dark Water Ops, which was conducting waylay duties in Marine Drive at the time.
The court found that the four were indeed not involved in the poaching itself, but found they were still guilty of not reporting the matter and rather attempting to make a quick buck in the process.
They were all sentenced to 12 months’ imprisonment, wholly suspended for five years.