Cycad poachers get jail sentence

FOUR poachers were found guilty and sentenced to jail in the Jansenville Magistrate’s Court yesterday afternoon after being arrested last year for attempting to smuggle 12 endangered Karoo cycads to Johannesburg.

The three-day trial came to an end yesterday with Chedrack Matango, 34, Desmond Monadawa (age unknown) and Alex Khoza, 23, being sentenced to five years’ direct imprisonment for theft and possession of a protected endangered species.

Lenard Khumalo, 43, was sentenced to 10 years behind bars for the same offence. He was given a heftier sentence as he has two previous convictions for cycad poaching.

In addition, the men’s bakkie, used in the transport of the plants, has been seized and forfeited to the state.

All four men live in Gauteng and came to the Eastern Cape to poach endangered cycads and smuggle them inland for sale on the black market. The estimated value of the cycads found on the bakkie was about R200 000.

The plants were later found to have been stolen from a farm in the Steytlerville area.

Green Scorpions special investigations unit member Inspector Etienne Kitching said one of the four was well known to authorities. “Cycad poaching in the province is a massive trade and we are working hand in hand with the police to clamp down on these environmental crimes.”

The bust came just a month after four other suspected cycad poachers – all from Gauteng – were caught in Kirkwood with 25 endangered Eastern Cape blue cycads, worth about R280 000, on the back of their bakkie.

In April, authorities arrested Telkom contractor Lourens van Zyl, 55, who is from North West but working in the Transkei area.

In a raid on his rented home in Lusikisiki, 21 cycads were found.

-Gareth Wilson