Joint efforts between the Fisheries inspectors from the Department of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries (DAFF), members of the South African Police Services (SAPS) as well as Customs officials in the Western Cape have led to increased seizure and confiscation of poached abalone in Cape Town.

These confiscations have dealt a huge blow to the syndicate involved in the abalone illegal exports.

DAFF together with SAPS officers raided illegal abalone processing and storage plans on the 2nd of February this year. These raids took place in the Milnerton and Montague Gardens areas.

The raids at the two premises yielded a combined total of 27 182 dried as well as 13 837 wet abalone. Further investigations led to the discovery of a 13 meter container at the Cape Town harbor that had already been cleared for export to the Far East.

Upon opening of the container on Friday the 10th of February 2017, the container was opened and was found to contain pellets with sealed boxes containing illegally harvested abalone. The whole consignment has been seized in terms of the Marine Living Resources Act 18 of 1998  pending  further  investigations and Court proceedings.

The confiscated abalone was weighed and found to be 9.4 tons of wet abalone and 3.3 tons of dried abalone.

The estimated value of the confiscated abalone is R30m.  

The latest successes by the joint Law Enforcement Agencies against organized crime are positive results of the efforts of partners involved in the enhanced and coordinated enforcement project. The Law Enforcement Agencies are all under instruction from the Cabinet to operate integrated under the Marine Protection Services and Governance (MPG) lab of Operation Phakisa. 

The department takes the abuse of marine resources and abalone in particular in very serious light and will leave no stone unturned in its pursuit.

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