Pretoria : 3 November 2015 – The close working relationship between the South African Police Service (SAPS) and the National Parks in fighting the scourge of rhino poaching in the country is proving to be a potent force in dealing serious blows to poachers. To tackle the illegal poaching of the rhino head on, the SAPS established the Kruger National Park Rhino Task Team, whose brief was, through a partnership with the park, to deal decisively with poachers. The latest to experience this level of decisiveness are two men who were arrested for possession of illegal firearms, ammunition and trespassing on Thursday shortly before midnight in two sections of the Kruger National Park. The two were caught by rangers in the Pretoriouskop and Nwanetsi Sections of the park who swiftly handed them to the police.
The two men, Samuel Ngobeni, 39, and Trevor Mhlanga, 23, have already appeared in the Whiteriver Magistrate’s Court sitting in Skukuza. They have been remanded in custody and are due in that court again tomorrow. Ngobeni, from Mozambique, was apparently in the company of others who managed to flee back into Mozambique. The latest arrests bring to four the number of suspects arrested within the park within a week. On the 22nd of October 2015 two Mozambican nationals were arrested in the Satara camp
of the park and, like the two suspects above, they were charged for possession of unlicensed firearms, ammunition and trespassing in the park.
In the past 12 months almost 160 suspected poachers have been arrested in the Kruger National Park, thus preventing what could have amounted to carnage on our beleaguered rhino.
