South Africans indicted in the US on rhino charges

01 Feb 2016 | Admin Author

The owners of a South African-based safari company has been charged in the United States with conspiracy to sell illegal rhino hunts to US hunters.

According to a statement via the US Embassy in Pretoria, Dawie Groenewald and his brother Janneman, are also accused of money-laundering and secretly trafficking in rhino horns.

The brothers and their company, Valinor Trading, which trades as Out of Africa Adventurous Safaris, are charged under the Lacey Act, America's oldest criminal statute addressing illegal poaching and wildlife trafficking.

US embassy spokesperson, Jack Hilmeyer, says the indictment was announced in Alabama on Thursday night.

According to the indictment, the Groenewalds allegedly recruited hunters at US conventions and gun shows between 2005 and 2010.

At the time, Janneman Groenewald lived in Alabama in the US.

The hunters were misled that the rhino to be killed needed to be culled for the good of the herd because they were "problem rhino".

Hunters were also told that the rhino horns could not kept by the hunters for legal reasons, and the brothers allegedly sold the horns on the black market.

"Eleven illegal hunts are detailed in the papers filed in federal court, including one in which the rhino had to be shot and killed after being repeatedly wounded by a bow, and another in
which Dawie Groenewald used a chainsaw to remove the horn from a sedated rhino that had been hunted with a tranquilliser gun."

US Attorney for the Middle District of Alabama, George Beck Jr, said in the statement that in addition to breaking South African laws, the Groenewalds allegedly laundered the funds raised through Alabama banks.

"These defendants tricked, lied and defrauded American citizens in order to profit from these illegal rhinoceros hunts," he claimed.

"We will not allow United States citizens to be used as a tool to destroy a species that is virtually harmless to people or other animals."

According to a previous statement on the US justice department's website, Dawie Groenewald was previously fined for illegally importing a leopard carcass to that country.

He was fined US30,000 (around R220,050 at the time) in April 2010 for his role in the crime.

He served eight days in jail and nearly two and a half months of house arrest for contravening the US's Lacey Act, which prohibits the import of wildlife products that are illegal under the laws of the country of origin.

In the South African rhino poaching case, Dawie Groenewald was reportedly granted R1 million bail, and his wife Sariette R100,000 bail, by the Musina Magistrate's Court in Limpopo in September 2010.

National Prosecuting Authority spokesman Nathi Mncube said on Friday that the authority was unaware of any extradition process relating to the brothers.