[imagesource: Shutterstock]

Rhino poaching continues to be profitable for those who get away with it and devastating to the animals and conservationists who seek to protect the endangered species.

Two notorious rhino-poaching “Boere rhino-horn mafia” members may have been sentenced recently, along with three more poachers at the Skukuza Regional Court this past Tuesday, but many more manage to escape through the net.

I have no doubt that you can pay your way to freedom across the country. Getting stopped at the airport is something else altogether.

Yesterday, reports IOL, a suspect was arrested at OR Tambo International Airport while trying to smuggle rhino horn.

He displayed zero creativity and was easily apprehended:

The 41-year-old man was arrested by members of the South African Police Service while trying to board a flight to Singapore. A security official at the airport alerted police to suspicious-looking items in the suspect’s hand luggage.

Image: Supplied by SAPS

Upon further investigation and interrogation of the suspect, police found that the suspect was carrying rhino horn weighing 26kg in his carry-on bag.

The average rhino horn weighs between one-and-a-half and three kilograms.

Look at all of those horns. He tried to hide those in his carry-on bag. In fact, the image above only shows some of the horns he was caught with.

Here are the rest:

Image: Supplied by SAPS

You have to take out your laptop and plonk it on the tray when passing through the scanners at airports. Did he somehow think the person wouldn’t notice a solid 26 kilograms of rhino horn?

What a fool.

There is no credit to be given to crooks, but at least other smugglers have shown a little more ingenuity in their attempts to evade detection.

According to officials, 72 kilograms of horn seized in December 2020 was hidden in a geyser en route to Malaysia. Authorities have also seized 63 kilograms labelled as printer cartridges, 160 kilograms labelled as wild plants, and other shipments labelled as coffee beans.

The man caught red-handed at OR Tambo yesterday will appear at the Kempton Park Magistrate’s Court on Monday on a charge of contravening the Biodiversity Act 10 of 2004, which prohibits the illegal trade of rhino horn.

[source:iol]