In an effort to assist the Department of Forestry Fishery and Environment (DFFE) and SANParks officials, Cape Town’s law enforcement established the Marine Unit, which focuses on poaching activities in and around the City of Cape Town.
According to mayoral committee member for safety and security, JP Smith, the DFFE is mandated to protect and preserve local marine resources, but it has yet to adequately regulate the industry, adequately enforce regulations, or investigate and prosecute the main roleplayers implicated in the steadily rising illicit trade.
From July 2022 to March 2023, the unit performed 12 arrests for various offences, including the unlawful possession and poaching of marine resources,’ said Smith in a Facebook post.
‘In the same period, the unit also assisted SANParks and DFFE in several joint operations. These included operations with the Anti-Gang unit where two premises were raided in Steenberg, operations with SANParks SEAM team off the Atlantic coast and operations with neighbouring municipalities and their enforcement units.’
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‘While legitimate, sustainable [abalone] farming facilities do exist, these operations require considerable running costs and reduces the profit margin after legal export costs are covered,’ said Smith.
‘For this, Western Cape gangs have long seen the value and as early as the nineties where it has been widely documented how our West Coast marine resources were being stripped and sold into the Asian black markets.’
Fast forward to May 2023 when the Anti-Gang Unit’s combined operation seized two firearms and ammunition along with 5 367 crayfish tails.
It is evident that gang warfare remains deeply intertwined with poaching activities.
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Additionally, a criminal trial was underway in the Western Cape High Court in May this year where a territory battle between the Terrible Josters and Junior Mafia gangs in Gansbaai was revealed.
After refusing to pay a fee for poaching within enemy territory, a number of prominent members of the opposing gang were assassinated.
Similar situations appear to have spread to the City of Cape Town as well, with the Terrible Josters operating across the suburb of Delft.
‘As the dangerous activity of poaching seeds itself further into gang-torn communities, increased enforcement must be complemented by improved investigations and strength in the prosecution outcome – those implicated must be prosecuted with expedience and ties severed to the organised gangs of the Western Cape,’ continues Smith.
In the efforts to further assist DFFE, SANParks and SAPS, several of City’s law enforcement members were sent to Botswana last year to conclude a training workshop on ‘Combatting Wildlife Trafficking’.
Members sent included officials from the Metro Police Training College, Senior investigators from the Safety & Security Investigation Unit, as well as a principle inspector from the Law Enforcement Marine Unit
‘The City of Cape Town recognises the need to protect its valuable marine resources, both for the immediate need to assist relevant enforcement agencies in combatting the increasing threat brought about by organised gangs and that relation to the crisis of poaching activities,’ said Smith.
‘It is under this realisation that we hope to make our expanded specialised investigative resource available to these same lead agencies that will further assist in gaining the destined prosecution outcomes,’ the post concluded.
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Picture: JP Smith / Facebook