Abalone Poaching

[Flutterby]

Took them long enough!

[Lisbeth]

How do the explain the time they have taken for what to me sounds like a rather simple investigation?

[Richprins]

Something fishy is going on at this plant in Gansbaai...lots to read!

[Richprins]

By Kimon de Greef

PUBLISHED November 14, 2017

Cape Town, South AfricaThe hit happened shortly before midnight. According to police, two vans pulled into Gansbaai Harbor, a small fishing port outside Cape Town, South Africa, and stopped at a factory beside the slipway. More than 10 armed men climbed out and hustled through a side gate, kidnapping four guards and making off with over 1.6 tons of dried abalone, worth more than $220,000.

Heists like this one, which took place on September 24, are becoming more common in South Africa’s abalone industry as wild stocks of the shellfish decline. Abalone is a status food in China, selling for more than $90 a pound alongside other dried marine delicacies like sea cucumbers and shark fin.

During the past 25 years, according to data from TRAFFIC, an NGO that monitors the illegal wildlife trade, Chinese-backed syndicates have illegally shipped more than 55,000 tons of South African abalone to Hong Kong, the nucleus of the industry. This has all but destroyed South Africa’s legal abalone fishery, which sustainably harvested some 770 tons of abalone a year until the poaching groups muscled in. (Read more: “Poaching for Abalone, Africa’s ‘White Gold,’ Reaches Fever Pitch.”)

With demand for South African abalone from China’s middle class increasing, and wild stocks now drastically depleted, a thriving abalone farming industry has emerged. Now the country’s fastest-growing aquaculture sector, abalone brought in more than $73 million in 2015. The shellfish are grown in tanks and fed a synthetic diet. When they grow to market size, ranging from one to nine ounces, they’re harvested and exported live, canned, or dried.

Abalone at market
View Images

Abalone is a prized delicacy in Asia, where it’s sold in markets, such as this one in Seoul, alongside other fish and shellfish. Demand has caused the value of abalone to skyrocket, and now farmers and processors in South Africa must hire security guards to protect their product.


Not surprisingly, given the dearth of wild abalone, traffickers have begun targeting this legal supply chain, including factories and transit vehicles.

“If you've got a wild resource, and everybody’s attacking it, and experts agree that it isn't going to last much longer, then you need to find another source,” says a risk analyst for the abalone industry, speaking on condition of anonymity. “This is another form of the poaching business.”

Abalone farmers in South Africa—there are now 13 commercial operations, concentrated on the southern coast near Gansbaai—are reluctant to speak on record about the growing poaching threat, fearing reputational damage in China. Producers who can’t guarantee safe shipping of their abalone, which are paid for in advance by Chinese clients, are considered a liability in the sector.

Most farmers have hired expensive private security firms to protect their premises and transport abalone in armored vehicles, often under armed escort. Even so, this hasn’t stemmed attempts to rob or hijack batches of the coveted shellfish.

A truck delivering live abalone to Cape Town airport in January 2014 was struck in a “highly professional” operation, according to the risk analyst. Taking a highway exit near the airport, the driver found himself blocked by a stationary car. A second vehicle drew up from behind, boxing him in. Within seconds there were gunmen at both doors. The thieves took over the truck and raced into a nearby township, where a response team tracked them by GPS and recovered the shipment. The thieves ran away, and police made no arrests.

Two years later another abalone driver dodged hijackers at the same exit. Nobody was hurt in these attacks, but this April a guard was shot in the abdomen during a hijacking, and two robbers and a guard were injured in a shootout in July.

On one stretch of highway farther out of Cape Town, assailants have shot at drivers and tried to force them off the road on three separate occasions, according to the risk analyst.

SHELLFISH AS BLACK-MARKET CURRENCY

The resemblance of these hits to bank robberies and cash-in-transit holdups is no coincidence: During the past two decades abalone has become hard currency on South Africa’s black market, bartered in bulk for drugs from China, including methamphetamine and its chemical precursors.

“The gangs who control the trade need to keep bringing in drugs, which means they’re going to keep looking for abalone,” says Marcel Kroese, a program manager at TRAFFIC and the former director of enforcement in South Africa’s Department of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries. “If they can’t get it from the sea, they’ll try elsewhere.”

View Images
Pictures of an abalone farm

The abalone farming industry is thriving in South Africa, where it brought in more than $73 million in 2015. There are also abalone farms in California, as well as China, Taiwan, Japan, and elsewhere.

Abalone has become such a hot commodity that poached stocks confiscated by South African authorities have also been stolen. In October 2015 the fisheries department acknowledged that masked gunmen had overpowered guards at a government warehouse in Cape Town, making off with several bags. This has happened at least twice in Cape Town and once in the city of Port Elizabeth, also a poaching hot spot, says a consultant who has worked with the department and asked not to be named.

The fisheries department auctions off confiscated abalone—dozens of tons every few months—to subsidize its anti-poaching operations. With as much as 30 percent of its entire budget funded by abalone sales, according to Beverly Schäfer, a member of the opposition party in parliament, critics say this system gives the department a financial stake in poaching.

The fisheries department did not respond to questions for this story.

A “SUSPICIOUS” AGREEMENT

In December 2016, Willjarro, the Johannesburg-based company that operates the Gansbaai abalone factory that was robbed this September, signed a contract with the fisheries department to process 90 tons of confiscated abalone—a deal worth more than $1.3 million. At the time the fisheries minister said that the contract was issued to reduce the “security risk” of storing abalone on government premises.

A month later, however, following a court challenge by a rival processing company, Shamode Trading Investments, the fisheries department suspended the contract.

Shamode alleged that the agreement was “suspicious” because Willjarro had no experience in aquaculture or the fishing industry. A subsequent forensic investigation, commissioned by the fisheries department, found further irregularities in Willjarro’s application: Court documents show that the company had registered with the department just a day before the tender was advertised and did not have necessary permits for processing or transporting abalone. This means that Willjarro should never have won the contract. The department has now launched an internal corruption investigation.

In suspending the contract, the fisheries department also revoked a permit they’d issued to Willjarro to export four tons of abalone. Willjarro then refused to return the confiscated abalone in its possession, weighing more than 33 tons. The company also ignored multiple court orders to insure the consignment. Around 1.6 tons of this stock was eventually stolen in the September heist, routed back onto the black market.

Willjarro has no listed contact details. A manager at the factory told National Geographic he would answer questions but then stopped responding to calls and messages. The company’s sole director, Ronald Ramazan, could not be reached for comment. A company belonging to Ramazan's son, Gershom, was accused in June of improperly winning a government contract—worth more than $1.5 million—to provide drought relief services in South Africa's Eastern Cape province. That contract was awarded by the same department that manages fisheries. Court documents show that Gershom Ramazan falsely signed as the director of Willjarro in the abalone processing agreement. He did not respond to questions from National Geographic.

Police did not respond to detailed questions about Willjarro and the Gansbaai heist, and there have been no arrests since the robbery. According to police captain F.C. Van Wyk, “the investigation continues.”

Beyond this knotty saga, the threat of hits on producers will likely increase as abalone stocks concentrate further into private facilities. “Syndicates will follow the abalone,” predicts TRAFFIC's Kroese, quoting early-20th-century American bank robber Willie Sutton: “I rob banks because that’s where the money is.”

Kimon de Greef is a freelance journalist from South Africa. He is working on a book about the illicit abalone trade. Follow him on Twitter.

https://news.nationalgeographic.com/201 ... rm-heists/

[Richprins]

Minister puts ‘emergency’ R60m abalone deal on ice

Sunday Times29 Jan 2017BOBBY JORDAN

THE government is investigating a “suspicious” emergency contract to process and market the state’s stockpile of confiscated abalone — about 90 tons worth R60-million — awarded to a previously unheard-of company.

Minister of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Senzeni Zokwana told the Sunday Times this week that he had suspended the contract after allegations of tender irregularities in the appointment last month of Johannesburg-based Willjarro.

The three-month contract involves processing and marketing poached abalone seized by police, previously handled by I&J subsidiary Walker Bay Canners in Hermanus.

The minister declined to divulge the nature of the allegations against Willjarro.

“The legal documents are with our legal unit — we can’t talk more on the allegations,” Zokwana said via his spokeswoman, Bomikazi Molapo.

The minister’s move came the day after a rival abalone marketing company, Shamode Trading and Investments, approached the High Court in Cape Town for an urgent interdict to have the emergency contract set aside. According to court documents:

The appointment of Willjarro did not follow Department of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries supply chain management procedures, and there was no need to issue an “emergency” contract;

The processing and marketing tender was not advertised;

The emergency contract allows Willjarro to market the processed abalone and earn a hefty commission. Previously, processed product was auctioned to the highest bidder;

Willjarro landed the contract without having a licence to operate a fish processing establishment; and

Key department officials apcomply peared to be unaware of the contract.

Matters came to a head this week when Willjarro was prevented from exporting a four-ton consignment of processed abalone to the Far East.

But the company continued to trade out of a processing factory in Gansbaai despite the suspension of its contract.

In an affidavit submitted to court, Shamode director Monique Larry said: “My initial reaction [to the contract] was one of amazement and disbelief. I could not accept that the new abalone processing contract would have been awarded without any fair procurement system being followed, and without any attempt to UNDER SUSPICION: Even though Willjarro’s contract to process and market abalone was suspended, the company continued to trade out of this processing factory in Gansbaai with the requirements of the supply chain management policy.

“The company Willjarro was completely unknown to anyone in the local abalone processing marketing industry.

“To the best of my knowledge they had never previously attended or bought produce at any of the previous auction sales.”

Willjarro spokesman Gershwin Ramazan said he was flummoxed by news that the company’s contract had been suspended.

“Nothing has been communicated to us. It is baffling. As far as we know it is business as usual.”

He said Willjarro was a legitimate company that had seen an opportunity in the abalone processing market. In doing so, it appeared to have “stepped on the snake’s head” by undercutting rivals.

“Our main objective is to fetch the best price for the government,” Ramazan said.

His company had no choice but to continue trading in the absence of any government instruction.

“We have running costs and overheads on a daily basis,” he said.

Ramazan said many of the allegations levelled against his company were unfounded. He declined to comment further while the matter was before court.

Other industry sources also slammed the new contract, claiming it amounted to “state capture”. Several branded it a “very suspicious” attempt to enrich a few individuals by circumventing the normal auction process.

Overberg Commercial Abalone Divers director Lea Erwee claimed she had been duped into allowing Willjarro to access her Gansbaai processing facility.

“These people must be put in jail,” she said. “We can’t get in the factory — they are occupying it. I had to take my abalone to Walker Bay [Canners] this year because they are occupying the factory.”

She said it appeared someone in government had manufactured a bogus emergency to justify the Willjarro contract.

However, Zokwana said the emergency was genuine due to the size of the state’s stockpile and the fact that the normal processing contract had expired in mid-December.

The stockpile constituted a security risk; a year ago it was stolen out of a government cold storage warehouse, he said.

My initial reaction [to the contract] was one of amazement and disbelief

https://www.pressreader.com/south-afric ... 1398683874

[Richprins]

Hawks probe Zuma for 'R1m bribe'
2018-03-25 06:00

Sipho Masondo


Former president Jacob Zuma is being investigated by the Hawks for allegedly accepting a R1m cash bribe from a Western Cape abalone dealer in exchange for keeping Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Minister Senzeni Zokwana in his Cabinet.

In an affidavit deposed at the Lyttelton Police Station in Centurion in December, businessman Chaile Seretse further alleges that Zokwana, union federation Cosatu president Sdumo Dlamini and agriculture department deputy director-general Siphokazi Ndudane each received a R300 000 bribe from the same businessman –¬ Deon Larry – who is also a convicted child molester.

Hawks spokesperson Hangwani Mulaudzi this week confirmed that the Hawks were investigating the bribery claims against Zuma, Zokwana, Dlamini and Ndudane.

“These are quite serious allegations. And the matter is being looked at by the Hawks’ serious corruption and serious economic offences units.

“It is still at an inquiry stage, but based on the allegations made, it looks like a docket will be opened up soon. And once the investigation is completed, we will hand over the docket to the National Prosecuting Authority [NPA] to decide what to do,” said Mulaudzi.

Seretse, the chief operating officer at abalone processing company Willjarro in Gaansbaai, alleges that the bribe was orchestrated by Ndudane, James Booi and Fryman Baaitjies to prevent Zuma from removing Zokwana from his Cabinet shortly after the local government elections in 2016. Booi and Baaitjies, who are also based in Gaansbaai, have interests in fishing and abalone processing.

“I joined the Gaansbaai confiscated abalone processing project in December 2016. During the course of the project, it came to my attention that James Booi and Fryman Baaitjies received an amount of R1.9m from Deon Larry,” said Seretse.

“This money was going to be used to bribe the president not to reshuffle the minister … after the local elections of August 2016.

“James, Fryman and Siphokazi did not want Zokwana to be reshuffled because he had a transformation agenda that he was going to implement through them. That would also include raising about R30m for the ANC through [a] fisheries project.”

Seretse alleges that Dlamini used his influence with and knowledge of Zuma and Zokwana to set up the meeting. After that, he claims that, in August 2016, Booi and Ndudane rented a car from the Dollar Thrifty rental company in Durban to drive to Nkandla to deliver the cash to Zuma.

“Sdumo Dlamini was given R300 000 for facilitating the meeting. Siphokazi was given R300 000 from the bribery money as well. Minister Zokwana also received R300 000 from the total bribery amount,” Seretse’s affidavit states.

This week, Seretse told City Press that his affidavit supplemented information he shared with the Hawks last year after he became aware of the alleged bribe.

In his affidavit, he says he “encouraged James and Fryman to come clean and give statements to the Hawks. I facilitated for them to give statements to Brigadier Oliver. Brigadier Oliver is in possession of those statements.”

FRAUD ON ANOTHER FRONT

The allegations come at a time when Larry, a representative of Shamode Trading and Investments, which is owned by his daughter Monique Larry, is locked in a court battle with Booi, Baaitjies, Cape Town-based Advocate Shaheen Moolla and two companies, Global Pact Trading 193 and Quota Holding Company.

In papers filed in July last year in the Western Cape High Court, Larry alleges that Booi and Moolla, in his personal capacity and as a representative of Quota, stole R2.5m from Shamode in an elaborate fraudulent scheme.

He alleges that, on August 3 2016, he handed Baaitjies R1.9m in cash and deposited a further R600 000 two weeks later into the account of Baaitjies’ company, Global Pact Trading. The money, he contends, was meant as start-up funds for a new joint venture intended to harvest rock lobster along the east coast after obtaining fishing rights from Zokwana’s department.

Larry argues that he bought into the idea because Moolla and Booi led him to believe that the department would give them fishing permits.

In March last year, after the realising the department would not give them the permits, Larry demanded his R2.5m back, claiming he had been defrauded.

But, in responding papers, Moolla, Booi and Baaitjies say the allegation is “outlandish”.

They also question why Larry would hand R1.9m cash to Baaitjies, who was not party to any agreement.

“No reasonable businessperson would pay an amount of R1.9m to an unauthorised person before any written agreement between the parties.”

The three agree that Larry paid R600 000 to Baaitjies’ Global Pact Trading business account, but say it was because he was in business with him.

Seretse says Larry’s court case is a smoke screen.

“He wants his money back. He thought he would be given an abalone processing tender by bribing officials,” he said.

Seretse said the agriculture department had given the tender Larry was eyeing to his company, Willjarro, in December 2016. But the tender, which was to process 90 tons of abalone, is now the subject of another court case because Zokwana cancelled it in January last year, arguing that it had been wrongfully awarded.

In response to emailed questions, Larry said the information was contained in court papers.

“The further intentions of the two gentlemen were unknown to us at the time. They are in the best position to respond to you as to what they did with the money.”

THE RECORDING

Meanwhile, a voice recording City Press obtained of a recent conversation between Booi and Willjarro chief executive Gershom Ramazan appears to confirm the bribery plot.

Ramazan confirmed the conversation between himself and Booi, but refused to comment further. Booi, who also refused to comment, said he could not listen to the recording as he could not open it on his cellphone.

In the recording, the voice purported to be Booi’s can be heard saying: “I’m sitting in court every day with Larry, with that money for Nkandla and stuff.”

Ramazan can be heard saying: “You know, just on that thing, you know how Deon Larry looks me in the eye, in the face, and he says to me ... and I said: ‘You knew that money was going to Nkandla, why are you putting pressure on these people? It’s not like they ate the money.’ He says to me [that] you and Fryman ate the money, you never gave the money to the president. You never gave money to Siphokazi; even Siphokazi says you never gave her money.”

Booi then responds: “But they know the truth … I’ve got enough on my side to throw them under a truck …Some of the places where we go, there is cameras, bra. That is why I’ve got specific dates in my head, you understand what I’m saying? For instance, there is nothing that stops me from asking [for] the record of the specific date and time on the place where we hired the car. I mean, at Nkandla at the gate, that report is there.”

WHAT THEY SAID

Baaitjies and Dlamini declined to comment. Vukile Mathabela, who received the questions on behalf of Zuma, failed to respond to questions sent to him more than a week ago.

Responding on behalf of Zokwana and Ndudane, attorney Barnabas Xulu said his clients became aware of the allegations when another newspaper enquired about them in January.

“In consideration of the fact that our clients do not wish to interfere in a police investigation, our clients hereby refrain from answering questions relating to this matter until the Hawks have completed their investigation,” he said.

He dismissed Seretse’s allegations as hearsay, adding that it was interesting that the allegations coincided with a court date in which the matter between the department and Seretse’s company would be heard.

Xulu said Seretse began his “defamation campaign” during the case between Willjarro and the department.

“It is as a result of Willjarro’s case having no merit that our clients hold the view that Willjarro and Chaile Seretse attempted to strong-arm the minister, the deputy director-general and even their legal representatives into endorsing their unlawfully obtained contract. Seretse and his associates’ behaviour can only be described as defamatory. Our clients are thus considering all possible options available to them in dealing with Seretse’s defamatory statements, and any person or publication that recklessly publishes same.”

Xulu said that “any and all allegations of corruption are unfounded and Seretse’s defamatory conduct is a mere forum shopping exercise”.

He further claimed that Seretse had gone as far as complaining about the department to Zuma, and complaining about him [Xulu] to the Cape Law Society.

https://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/News ... 20180325-3

[Lisbeth]

Fishy to say the least

The whole country is corrupt and the population (those who are not corrupt) are paying for it! and in the meantime the sought after flora and fauna of South Africa are on the brink of extinction

[Richprins]

Kgomotso Modise | 17 minutes ago

JOHANNESBURG – The Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) president Sdumo Dlamini has denied allegations linking him to a cash bribe from a Western Cape abalone dealer and says he will respect an investigation by the police.

The City Press reported how former President Jacob Zuma is being investigated by the Hawks for allegedly accepting money from businessman Deon Larry in exchange for keeping Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Minister Senzeni Zokwana in his position after the August 2016 polls.

According to the paper, businessman Charlie Seretse further alleges in an affidavit that Zokwana and deputy Director-General Siphokazi Ndudane, each received a R300,000 bribe from Larry.

Dlamini that insists he's done nothing wrong.

“No police has spoken to me about anything of that nature, nothing. I’m even asking myself why would people be spreading names in the newspapers? I really don’t know.”

It's alleged that the bribe was orchestrated by three other Western Cape businessmen who have interests in fishing and abalone processing.

They allegedly didn’t want Zokwana to be removed because he had a transformation agenda which he was going to implement through them.

http://ewn.co.za/2018/03/26/cosatu-pres ... llegations

[Lisbeth]

This case is becoming a novel

[Richprins]

EXCLUSIVE: Top-secret file links government officials to abalone poaching
04 April 2018 - 06:30 By Aron Hyman

A tug-of-war over three tons of poached perlemoen has exposed claims of crippling corruption in the fight against organised crime.

A “top-secret” police crime intelligence document seen by Times Select recounts how an undercover operation aimed at the kingpins of an international abalone poaching network was allegedly derailed by the government official in charge of thwarting poaching and smuggling, Nkosinathi Dana.

But sources in Dana’s marine enforcement unit at the Department of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries responded with counter-claims this week. They said the undercover operation, which involved abalone being taken from Daff stores, was in fact a plot by corrupt police and department officials to steal the threatened mollusc.

Thousands of tons of poached abalone are registered as legally imported goods each year in Hong Kong, where a “catty” (equivalent to 605 grams) can fetch as much as R5,800.


https://www.timeslive.co.za/news/south- ... -poaching/