The men aged between 20 and 45 were arrested last Monday after they tried to sell about 50 allegedly stolen cross breed cattle to the value of R400 000. Police spokesperson, Mamello Mokhuoane, says police conducted a preliminary investigation after a livestock speculator from Lindley, who was approached telephonically to buy cattle, became suspicious. Mokhuoane says the speculator was directed to an unknown person who took him to the farm. The speculator became suspicious when they entered the farm through another gate as the main gate was locked.

She says the farm’s main gate was locked and they gained entrance through another gate about 50 meters from the main gate. This alternate gate was closed with a piece of wire. Mokhuoane says a suspect showed the cattle, that were in a kraal, to the speculator. According to her the speculator was by then already suspicious because of the way they gained entrance to the farm. Mokhuoane says Eugene Styger of the Odendaalsrus Stock Theft and Endangered Species unit was alerted by the suspicious speculator. Styger conducted a preliminary investigation and discovered that the cattle offered for sale do not belong to the people attempting to sell it. Styger then set up a controlled police operation by means of an entrapment in terms of Section 252A of the Criminal Procedure Act. He was assisted by members of the same unit in Bultfontein.

Mokhuoane says the speculator and an undercover police officer went to the farm at about 19:00 the same day to buy and collect the cattle. The suspect who originally showed the cattle to the speculator and six other suspects were arrested on site. They are expected to apply for bail in the Ventersburg Magistrate's Court on Thursday.

She says the owner of the farm was also informed by police what is happening as he was not aware that his cattle are being sold by unknown men.  

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