Cape Town - When police found 8 397 shucked abalone in the garage of Warrant Officer Daniel October’s house they called him at the Gansbaai Police Station.
As they watched the abalone slime drip from a car parked in October’s garage, they asked him to unlock his garage.
He refused. They sent a policeman to fetch him, but he wouldn’t budge. They eventually arrested him at the police station.
Read: ‘All that was left of one diver was a pelvic bone’
October is one of five policemen standing trial with 20 others accused in a racketeering case involving one of the biggest abalone syndicates in the country in the Western Cape High Court.
It is believed the syndicate has 700 members. They allegedly smuggled abalone worth R2 billion, poaching an average of 1.1 ton a day over a 13-year period between 1998 and 20011.
The State accuses October of making abalone dockets “disappear”.
Jan De Waal testified the crew “dressed in October’s house” – putting on their wetsuits, 300 bar nitrogyn-oxygen diving tanks and weightbelts.
De Waal said, “a police bakkie picked up abalone in the old harbour”.
October’s friend, Sergeant Jody Behr, worked for the police for 15 years – seven years at Napier and eight at Stanford.
The court was told he freelanced for the syndicate, but later left the police to join the syndicate full-time in 2004.
According to the State, Behr “occasionally” fetched money from the alleged Chinese mastermind of the syndicate, Ran Wei, to pay poachers.
Behr was once caught carrying R400 000 in cash which he claimed belonged to local syndicate leader Frank Barends, who allegedly sold the abalone to Ran.
Lieutenant Colonel Lise Potgieter, leader of the police team that crushed the syndicate, testified that “Behr was caught with the money and the money is Frank’s”.
A member of her team, Captain Danie Rautenbach, told the court Behr was the syndicate’s “operational group manager” while syndicate members testified he drove ahead of the rest of the crew.
De Waal remembered the day he found out Behr was a cop. “He took out his badge and showed me he’s actually a policeman. I got the fright of my life . I was thinking: ‘Oh my God, this guy is working for us. We’re nicely pushed into the jaws of the shark’.”
Another policeman, Johannes “Koppe” Jacobs who worked at the Gansbaai and Stanford police stations was arrested and found guilty for issuing firearms to the same syndicate.
He was in charge of the divers, weighing the abalone, paying the divers and selling the perlemoen.
Five witnesses pointed Jacobs out as the scaleman.
De Waal testified that, “Koppe... he was always the guy who paid and who weighed.”
And 500km north, the syndicate had two policemen working for them in Beaufort West.
Warrant Officer Frank Maritz and Sergeant Clive Booysen made sure the perlemoen got to Joburg, safely into the hands of Ran, who smuggled it to China.
The crime boss is on the run after skipping South Africa in 2010 and is wanted by Interpol.
Maritz used his police van to fetch poachers at a truck stop about 15km outside Beaufort West while Booysen used a small blue bakkie, a gift from the syndicate leaders.
At the truck stops Maritz and Booysen took cash bribes of R6 000 from the poachers. This ensured safe passage through the town.
Poacher and State witness Carlo Adams said: “Police drove in front and if something is wrong in town, they phone and said: ‘Okay, we’re going this side or that side”.
Witness and poacher Jonty Adonis said police led him through the town twice a week.
Another poacher, Barend van Vuuren, testified they escorted him at least 11 times while en route to Joburg and twice to Cape Town.
Undercover agents trapped Booysen. He accepted a R6 000 bribe from poacher Edward Jaftha to allow 80kg of abalone through the town. October is still at the Gansbaai police station and Maritz at Beaufort West.
But they don’t do much police work. Since 2014 they’ve spent most of their time in court.
Weekend Argus