Rhino Poaching: Arrests, Prosecutions & Sentencing

[Alf]

Why are they taking so long

[okie]

Sometimes it takes a little time to negotiate bribes

[Lisbeth]

I hope not Not this time

[Richprins]

Violent intimidation threatens Lowveld journalists
Poaching accused and supporters accused of violence, intimidation in full view of law enforcement.
16 hours ago

Mireille de Villiers






Photo: Jana Boshoff /Middelburg Observer

MBOMBELA – Joseph Nyalunga, better known as Big Joe, cuts an imposing figure. The former police officer has been in the news for years over charges relating to rhino poaching.



He has also made headlines with his treatment of the reporters covering his high-profile court appearances. Some of these alleged acts of intimidation, threats and physical violence sometimes do not make headlines.

Jana Boshoff’s case did, in April 2013. Nyalunga allegedly attacked the journalist of Middelburg Observer inside the local court during one of his appearances.

Nyalunga was accused, together with 12 others, of crimes relating to rhino horn smuggling. These included the buying of protected wildlife, money laundering, drug possession, housebreaking, house robbery, employing illegal immigrants, for providing assistance to illegal immigrants, possession of stolen property, theft and conspiracy to commit a crime.

Boshoff remembered the day well. She told Lowvelder that Nyalunga had been arrested at a roadblock in Middelburg.

He was standing in the dock, wearing a hoodie, and covering his face with a piece of paper. She walked around his attorney and snapped the picture. He tried to smack her, but missed, hit her over the nose with the piece of paper and then got hold of her camera strap and pulled her closer. She shouted, “No”, and he let go.

“I think he was mad because he didn’t want me to take a photo of him. I got a very big fright, and realised what contempt he has for the court orderlies and police.”

Boshoff was not injured and did not take the matter further.

Tereasa Dias, a Lowvelder reporter, was also threatened by Nyalunga while attempting to cover one of his previous court appearances – also on poaching charges. On August 30, 2016 in the Nelspruit Regional Court she was taking pictures of proceedings when Nyalunga got up from his seat in the gallery and charged at her, yelling that she must not take his photo.

She managed to evade as court police stopped him.

Most recently, Lowvelder reporter Arisa Janse van Rensburg was accosted by supporters of seven poaching accused outside the White River Magistrate’s Court.

Nyalunga, Petros Sidney Mabuza (Mr Big/Mshengu), Clyde Mnisi, Aretha Mhlanga, Claude Lubisi and Rachel Qwebana were arrested on charges related to rhino poaching in September last year.

Last week Monday the accused reappeared. After their appearance, Janse van Rensburg walked to her car.

On the way she passed two other accused in the case, Mabuza and Mnisi. She asked each for a photograph, and each smiled for a picture she took.
As she approached Nyalunga shouted at her that he should get shares in Lowvelder. She laughed at the joke and snapped a picture.

Two men who were with Nyalunga turned around. She took another picture, then continued towards her car which was parked on Peter Graham Street around the corner from the court’s main entrance.

Both men blocked the way between her and her car. She explained to them that she was simply doing her job.

They repeatedly told her to “F@#k off” and poked at her. They added phrases including “Next time you come here we will get you,” and “Journalists are k@k” and threatened to hurt her.

This occured in full view of a number of police officers and security guards stationed at this entrance. None of them did anything to assist.
Janse van Rensburg managed to flee.

During a previous appearance in October, two supporters protesting against the alleged poachers’ arrest charged Janse van Rensburg outside of the court building, grabbed her wrists, pushed and shoved her and tried to take her phone from her.

What shocked her most, she said, was that police and security guards, standing metres away, witnessed the incident but did nothing.

Both incidents were reported to police, but last Monday she was informed that no record of the previous complaint exists in the system.

Monica Nyuswa, spokesman for the National Prosecuting Authority, referred the newspaper to the SAPS and Department of Justice.

Police spokesman Brig Leonard Hlathi said he would respond to the newspaper’s queries. He had not at the time of going to press on Monday.

Nyalunga was approached for comment via his lawyer, who also had not responded.

https://lowvelder.co.za/466448/violent- ... urnalists/

[Flutterby]

A bunch of thugs!

[Lisbeth]

That's the local police in SA

[Richprins]

Hong Kong seizes $1m of rhino horn in record airport haul


HONG KONG - Two men carrying at least 24 severed rhino horns were arrested in Hong Kong airport by customs officers who said it was their largest ever seizure of rhino contraband smuggled by air passengers.

The haul -- worth some HK$8-million ($1-million) -- was transported brazenly through the terminal in two cardboard boxes, the customs department said.



The pair had arrived from Johannesburg and were planning to transit to Vietnam's Ho Chi Minh City, according to a statement from the department, which did not give their nationalities.

An environmental group in Hong Kong said the 40kg of horn was a major bust -- accounting for 20 percent of the total amount of rhino horn seizures in the city in the last five years.



Sophie le Clue, environment programme director of ADM Capital Foundation, said there was likely an organised network behind the trafficking.

"What I would like to see is less seizures and more of those who are responsible for crimes in the court -- and not just the people who are carrying it," she told AFP.

Local conservation groups have long called on Hong Kong to do more to crack down on illegal wildlife smuggling by ending legal loopholes and lenient sentences.


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 a nostrum, comprised of little more than keratin, the same protein that makes human hair and fingernails.

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

South Africa, which is home to about 80 percent of the world rhino population, has been hit hardest. In 2018, 769 rhinos were poached in South Africa alone.

More than 7,100 animals have been killed over the past decade.
AFP

https://www.enca.com/news/hong-kong-sei ... rport-haul

[Lisbeth]

Look how small some of them are and to think that a rhino must die for that is almost unbearable

[Flutterby]

Sickening!!

[Lisbeth]

Twelve suspected poachers arrested in Kruger Park in past two weeks

26 February 2019 - 16:43
BY IAVAN PIJOOS


Despite efforts by authorities, rhinos remain a target for poachers in the Kruger National Park.
Image: Gallo Images/Thinkstock

Police officers and SA National Parks (SANParks) rangers have in the past two weeks arrested 12 people linked to poaching in the Kruger National Park.

Three Mozambican men, aged between 33 and 36, were caught in the Stoltznek section of the park on Monday.

Police spokesperson Col Mtsholi Bhembe said the men were found in possession of a .458 rifle, ammunition and a silencer.

They appeared in the Mapulaneng Magistrate's Court in Bushbuckridge, Mpumalanga, on Tuesday.

Three other Mozambican men were arrested last Thursday after being found in possession of a hunting rifle, ammunition, a knife, a silencer and an axe.

They were charged with possession of a firearm and ammunition without a licence, trespassing and possession of dangerous weapons.

In the same week, two others were arrested for being in possession of a firearm without a licence and trespassing.

Bhembe said a SANParks employee was among four people arrested at one of the entrances to the park two weeks ago in possession of "freshly cut" rhino horns, a hunting rifle and ammunition.

Provincial commissioner Lt-Gen Mondli Zuma commended the team for their hard work. "Elephants and rhinos are a natural resource which need to be preserved for future generations in the country," he said.