Durban - One-hundred and forty thousand rand, allegedly obtained from the illegal sale of dagga by a Camperdown couple, has been seized by the state.
The order to preserve the cash was granted in the Pietermaritzburg High Court and will be held under the custody and control of the exhibit clerk at the Camperdown police station.
In court papers, senior deputy director of public prosecutions, Knorx Molelle, explained that the cash was found in the possession of Gareth Kerrick at the Dunhill Farm in Killarney, near Cato Ridge, and was seized by police on July 17 last year.
Captain Colette Bruwer, attached to the Kwadukuza Task Team, said in an affidavit that she received information that a white male was growing dagga on the farm.
According to Bruwer, upon entering the farmhouse, she and other police officers found sealed plastic bags containing a green-coloured substance which appeared to be dagga.
Four people were in the farmhouse at the time, and were identified as Kerrick, his girlfriend, Frances van Zyl, and their friends, Peter Carl le Roux and Riaan du Preez.
The police established that Kerrick had been leasing the farm from Jacobus Stiglingh, who is the registered owner of the farm and who now lives in New Zealand.
During a search conducted of the farm, it was established that the farmhouse, a room outside the kitchen, an unplastered, external, three-roomed building and a nursery covered in shade-cloth were areas used to cultivate and process the dagga.
Bruwer confirmed that three bin bags containing dried dagga heads was found inside the farmhouse, and a further three plastic packets containing dried dagga was found in the outside room.
Two glass plates and a dish containing what Kerrick confirmed to be dagga oil were found in the study, as well as two glass bottles of dried dagga. A total of 242 dagga plants were found inside pots, as well as five fans, one heater, two temperature gauges, and special lights used to cultivate plants were located around the farmhouse.
The dagga plants and dagga found in the house would yield between two and four kilograms, worth R40 000/kg.
“The plants being harvested were clearly on a large scale,” she said.
Bruwer said that when the couple (Kerrick and Van Zyl) were questioned as to the whereabouts of the money earned from their illegal drug operation, it was Van Zyl who voluntarily pointed out a shed on the farm where the cash had been hidden.
Kerrick removed a stack of wooden boards been placed against a wall to reveal a portable blue safe which contained R140 000 cash, three passports, 100 Jamaican dollars and a silver Indonesian coin.
Bruwer revealed that cash kept as exhibits in the SAPS stations were no longer secure following several cases of theft and burglary, either involving an inside job or outside burglaries, which had been reported in the media.
“The unfortunate and stark reality is that this type of theft is ever increasing and the cash would be safer kept in the custody of a court-appointed clerk,” Bruwer said.
Meanwhile, the criminal cases against Kerrick, Van Zyl, Du Preez and Le Roux, are pending in the Camperdown Magistrate’s Court.
Daily News