KLEINMOND, South Africa (Oct. 4, 2003) -- When suspected perlemoen poachers in Betty's Bay marine reserve tried to evade arrest by swimming away underwater on Wednesday night, there was nothing they could do about the tell-tale trail of air bubbles from their scuba gear, which allowed determined law enforcement officials to follow them in a boat until their air ran out. The divers, one so weak his partner had to support him, eventually spluttered to the surface and gave themselves up. Later, bags containing 244 perlemoen, worth about R20 000, were found underwater where the men had been diving by torchlight. Craig Spencer, head of Overstrand's conservation department, said yesterday he and others had staked out the marine reserve on Wednesday night and watched a big "double-storey" cabin cruiser drop off two divers. "The reserve is one of the last strongholds for the perlemoen in the Hangklip area. We'd seen this boat operate from Gordon's Bay and noticed it in the reserve before. We saw it drop divers at 8.50pm. Police from Operation Neptune were staked out on the shore and I was in a boat with one Neptune officer and one of my guys. "The boat had no running lights and we couldn't follow it because it was fast. Meanwhile, the divers were underwater and we could see their torches. "When we approached in the boat, they switched them off and wouldn't come up. They tried to evade us by swimming away but we had a spotlight in our boat and followed their bubbles from their scuba gear. We followed them by their bubble trail for about 30 minutes, and eventually they came out," Spencer said. | | Spencer arrested them under Section 43 of the Marine Living Resources Act, which states that it is illegal to fish or attempt to fish in a reserve. At first light yesterday divers went down and found bags of 244 freshly shucked perlemoen, shells and scars on the rocks. Operation Neptune officers took the perlemoen to Kleinmond police station as evidence, only to find the suspects had been released because the police thought the case was a "bit shaky". Said Spencer: "It's very frustrating. I'd have expected them to phone me as the arresting officer to say they were going to release them so we could have said give us another five hours. It will be an important case because Section 43 has not been tested in court before," Spencer said. The public prosecutor from Hermanus regional court did not share the view of the Kleinmond police that the case was shaky, and has issued a warrant for the arrest of the two suspects. When the Cape Times asked the Kleinmond police to comment, no one was available to explain why the men had been released. SOURCE - Cape Times |
