Dogs deployed to help fight avo theft in the Lowveld

MBOMBELA – Avo season started early this year: The fruit are far from ripe, but thieves have already started large-scale plundering.

Worst of all is that the stolen avos will never ripen, and are more likely to rot.
No avocados are harvested locally during these months, and those available in stores are imported at great expense – hence the inflation of prices. Thieves usually hit before the harvesting begins.

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Although theft has been a long-standing problem, it is said to increase exponentially from February onward. The South African harvest will get under way in all earnest by the middle of March and last until the middle of November.

ACS Security recently attended to a case at Fruit Group, on Killarney, part of Geoff Twycross Trust in Schagen valley, where trees were stripped of two tons of avos in a matter of hours. According to Johan Kriel of ACS, an unknown number of suspects gained entry to the property by cutting the fence.

The haul is estimated to be worth thousands. “The avos were carefully selected and cut from the stem with fruit scissors – only the biggest and best were taken,” he said.

These two tons represent income for this farm and as a result they have suffered significant losses. The avos are yet to be recovered, nor have any arrests been made. Should the fruit be recovered it would be useless, as it was picked too early.

Theft has been a long-standing problem, but has increased exponentially over the past years, threatening the future of the industry. To combat the thieves’ increasingly sophisticated methods, ACS met with the farmers on Monday, after which a decision for major security upgrades had to be taken.

These included live cameras being installed, as well as constant 24-hour monitoring of the property and the footage. A dedicated vehicle has been assigned to the area and they are bringing in a K9 unit.

LISTEN: John Meintjies of ACS explains more detail: 

“Thieves started stealing from December, probably because tourists created a market and the fruit, although not ready, looked edible,” he said.

Last year, during almost exactly in the same period, Lowvelder reported how bagged avocados worth more than R300 000 were discovered on the same farm, ready to be transported. In a separate incident, security guards found 30 people picking avocados in an orchard, while three bakkies waited to transport them.

Macadamia harvesting season also starts next month, and the theft of the valuable nuts are expected to increase sharply.

The illegal trade is estimated to cost the economy hundreds of millions of rand annually.
According to the South African Macadamia Growers’ Association (Samac) there had been various attempts to estimate the total tonnage of stolen macadamia, and that these figures ranged from between 1 000 and 4 000 tons in 2016.

Only recently, in addition to a bakkieload full of fruit, Hi-Tech Special Services and Hi-Tech Hazyview R40 recovered thousands of rand worth of macadamias. Luckily the client was informed and the macadamias handed back to the owner.

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