POLOKWANE – An organised forum of cattle farmers in Seshego say they believe cattle theft in the area is the work of insiders.
This, after several of their members recently found a bucketful of freshly slaughtered meat at a leased house in Ext 78 – after suffering sporadic cow theft in recent weeks.
Even though the location of where they found the bucket is situated roughly 5km away from where they stay, and the police maintain it is difficult to establish a link, the forum remains adamant that there is a connection between their livestock disappearing and the bucket with meat they discovered.
The disgruntled township residents, some of whom are pensioners and widows, say they suspect “an inside job”.
“We have been doing our own investigation all along. The night before, we found a cut head and skin on the farm. The trail led us to where we found the meat, but the owner there is said to have been tipped off and he left roughly an hour before we arrived at his place.”
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They say they have cattle herders present during the day, and security guards and surveillance cameras at night, but that no one has seen anything.
“We wonder who told him we were coming, because we believe someone among us is the culprit,” said Simon Raphihlela, one of the owners.
“Guards are meant to patrol constantly but I doubt they do, or they are part of a syndicate.”
Raphihlela says in the last month, four branded cows had been slaughtered on the farm, while two more faced the same fate just the day before the bucket incident.
They branded the cattle, he said, response to provincial police commissioner, Lt Gen Thembi Hadebe’s statement that owners had to do so to make it easier to identify stolen and recovered livestock.
Although stock theft has decreased by 0.4% in Limpopo according to the latest crime statistics for January to March, 19 persons were arrested in 92 stock theft cases in this period.
Last Thursday, Ishmael Manamela (40), Abel Maboa (58) and David Semono (63) were found guilty of livestock theft and possession of suspected stolen cattle, following a lengthy trial from 2019 in Ga-Molepo. They were sentenced to a combined 30 years in prison by the Polokwane Magistrate’s Court.
Read more: Collective 30 years in jail for three stock thieves
The court heard that the trio had stolen 10 heads of cattle at a grazing field on Februa ry 11, 2019. The three were eventually netted by the police along the Roodepoort road in the Westenburg policing area a day after, while heading to an auction in Mokopane transporting the stolen cattle in a van with a trailer, according to local spokesperson, Lt Col Malesela Ledwaba.
Phihlela told BONUS that in one of their investigations as a forum, they found butchers disguising as small time sellers in the city, selling at very low prices.
“The meat shows that it was cut haphazardly without machines, and this is very different from meat sold at proper butcheries. We are afraid that this is where our cattle, bred with hard-earned money, ends up.”
Local police said they would investigate the matter.
