Western Cape: Police attached to the K9 Unit were conducting patrols on farms in the vicinity of Gordon’s Bay Road where they interacted with the community and obtained information of chest freezers that was delivered at a specific address.
At about 10:30 police entered the premises situated in Lumber Jacks smallholdings, Gordon’s Bay, where they found an illegal abalone processing facility. In the courtyard they found a large steel cooking pot, a chest freezer containing a bag of shucked abalone, a washing area, gas cylinders and numerous bags of salt. Inside the building were two fully equipped drying rooms containing numerous shelves stacked with abalone. In a separate room the members also found another five crates filled with dried abalone, another chest freezer and two scales.
Officials from the Department of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries were summoned to the scene where the abalone was counted. It amounted to 81 units of fresh shucked abalone and 13 160 units of dried abalone. The value will be determined after being weighed; it is estimated at more than R1.5 million street value.
Two suspects, a 36-year-old Zimbabwean national and a 42-year-old Chinese national were arrested and are expected to appear in the Strand Magistrates’ Court on Monday 16 November 2015on abalone related charges.
