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Police arrest six suspected rhino poachers in Limpopo and Gauteng; recover horns, guns and ammunition.

The Hawks have arrested a second suspect allegedly linked to the stockpile hit at the North West Parks Board headquarters in Mafikeng last week. According to a Daily Maverick source, the suspect was apprehended in a planned operation near Brits at about 9pm on Tuesday. On Wednesday morning the arrest was confirmed by a senior SAPS officer who did not want to be identified.

Conservationists are raising serious questions about crime scene protocols - and the sense in stockpiling rhino horn - after a report claimed the police took eight hours to respond to a burglary at the North West Parks Board on Monday. In what is being described as a well-planned heist executed with military precision, thieves broke into the Heritage House headquarters of the North West Parks Board in the early hours of Monday and stole 51 rhino horns worth millions of rands on the Asian black market.

Wildlife officials have hailed the National Prosecuting Authority’s (NPA) recent decision to appeal what it called the lenient sentences handed to two rhino poachers in May, as well as the jailing this week of one of the men in a separate case.

The national prosecuting authority (NPA) has reinstated charges and re-enrolled an eight-year-old case against known rhino poacher Gideon (aka Deon) van Deventer, after it emerged the original case had been quashed and struck from the roll under dubious circumstances. The state’s 2014 Bronkhorstspruit firearms case against Van Deventer was re-opened in June this year after a whistle-blower tipped off law enforcement authorities and court officials about a miscarriage of justice that occurred at the Bronkorstspruit magistrate’s court on 24 July 2015.

The charge sheet says the tusks weighed three kilograms, worth Sh300,000.

Two Victoria Falls men, one of them a neighbourhood watch committee (NWC) member, have been fined $6 000 each for trapping animals with wire snares.

A long-serving nature conservation official and a former policeman have been charged in connection with illegally transporting 17 rhino horns from the Northern Cape to North West province in contravention of permit conditions.

Two villagers from Binga who were caught trying to sell a live pangolin in Zambia have been sentenced to a mandatory five years in jail each in the neighbouring country.

Two villagers from Binga who were caught trying to sell a live pangolin in Zambia have been sentenced to a mandatory five years in jail each in the neighbouring country. Ephrain Mugande (35) and Simple Mugande (32) both of Manjolo Village under Chief Sikalenge illegally hunted the pangolin in Chizarira National Park on the boundary of Binga and Gokwe before crossing the Zambezi River with it to Sinazongwe town in Zambia with the intention to sell it.

Two villagers from Binga have been arrested in Zambia after they were found in possession of a live pangolin they allegedly intended to sell in the neighbouring country.

A 53-year-old villager from Dete in Matabeleland North has appeared in court for unlawful possession of four elephant tusks.

A 53-year-old villager from Dete in Matabeleland North has appeared in court for unlawful possession of four elephant tusks. Similo Vundla of Mambanje village under Chief Nekatambe was arrested by an anti-poaching team in March.

Football Club player Craven Banda has been arrested after he was allegedly found with eight raw elephant tusks.

Four elephants were found dead, three of them without tusks in Woodlands Farm resettlement area on Monday.

Outrage greeted the early release of notorious Thai trafficker Chumlong Lemtongthai, who used false South African hunting permits to launder rhino horns. Simon Bloch reports.

A Hwange man and his son have been arrested for poaching after they were allegedly caught trapping animals and birds at the edge of Hwange National Park. Smart Shoko (48) and Ferdinand Shoko (26) both of Number F98 Madumabisa were found in possession of four impala carcasses, a baboon carcass and 79 fowl birds when they were ambushed by an anti-poaching unit in Bumbusi area outside Hwange town on Tuesday.