Journal of the Indian Ocean Region

ISSN: 1948-0881 (Print) 1948-108X (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rior20

The difficulties in policing and combatting of a

maritime crime: the case of Abalone poaching
along South Africa's coastline

Anthony Minnaar, Leandri van Schalkwyk & Sarika Kader

To cite this article: Anthony Minnaar, Leandri van Schalkwyk & Sarika Kader (2018):
The difficulties in policing and combatting of a maritime crime: the case of Abalone
poaching along South Africa's coastline, Journal of the Indian Ocean Region, DOI:
10.1080/19480881.2018.1421448

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/19480881.2018.1421448

Published online: 18 Jan 2018.

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JOURNAL OF THE INDIAN OCEAN REGION, 2018
https://doi.org/10.1080/19480881.2018.1421448

The difficulties in policing and combatting of a maritime

crime: the case of Abalone poaching along South Africa’s
coastline
Anthony Minnaar, Leandri van Schalkwyk and Sarika Kader
Department of Criminology & Security Science, School of Criminal Justice, College of Law, University of South
Africa, Pretoria, South Africa

ABSTRACT ARTICLE HISTORY

The poaching or the illegal harvesting of Abalone has for many years Received 8 November 2017
been endemic along South Africa’s coastline and is the biggest Accepted 21 December 2017
threat to the continued survival of Abalone in the wild in its seas.
KEYWORDS
Over the last 25 years, Abalone, once abundant, has been Abalone (perlemoen)
poached to the verge of commercial extinction. As a criminal poaching; maritime security
enterprise Abalone poaching has become a well-planned, highly and governance; policing
lucrative, illicit industry, controlled by organized crime syndicates, marine crime; Western Cape;
with large numbers of Abalone being harvested and poached South Africa
illegally every year. Ninety-five percent of the poached Abalone in
South Africa is smuggled out of the country to countries in South-
East Asia, where it is a high-priced delicacy. This paper examines
some of the factors driving the demand–supply dynamics, modus
operandi, syndicate networks and smuggling routes concerning
Abalone poaching in South Africa and the authorities’ efforts to
combat it. Policing of this maritime crime presents its own set of
obstacles and difficulties compounded by lack of funds; antipathy
of communities dependent on Abalone poaching for economic
survival; disbandment of special abalone anti-poaching task
forces; high levels of corruption and even collusion between
police and poaching syndicates.

Introduction
Abalone, is ‘an edible mollusc (shellfish) of warm seas, with a shallow ear-shaped shell
lined with mother-of-pearl and pierced with a line of respiratory holes’ (The Oxford Diction-
ary Online, [sa]). It is basically a large rock-clinging marine snail with a flat shell living in
shallow water and takes seven to nine years to mature and can reach a shell length of
up to 230 mm (Hecht, 1994, pp. 171–181). Approximately 20–25% of their total live
weight is meat (Tarr, 1989, p. 63). In South Africa it is also commonly called ‘Perlemoen’
(the name being derived from the Dutch term: Paarlemoer – meaning ‘mother-of-pearl’)
(Tarr, 2003).
The commercially exploitable variety of Abalone, Haliotis midae, is one of three
common Abalone species along the South African southern coastline (Tarr, 1989). This
Abalone species occurs largely from around Cape Town (highest concentration) in the

CONTACT Anthony Minnaar aminnaar@unisa.ac.za

© 2018 Indian Ocean Research Group
2 A. MINNAAR ET AL.

Western Cape Province, up the coast to and past Port Elizabeth in the Eastern Cape Pro-
vince to as far as Port St Johns near the border with KwaZulu-Natal Province – a distance
of approximately 1500 kilometers of shoreline. But the most abundant Abalone fisheries1
traditionally exploited were from Cape Columbine on the West coast down past Cape
Town and along the South-eastern coast up to Quoin Point at Cape Agulhas – a distance
of about 370 kilometers (DAFF, 2012, p. 5). The commercially exploitable variety does not
occur naturally in any other Southern African countries (although there is a small commer-
cial farm in Namibia) (Willock, Bürgener, & Sancho, 2004, p. 34).
The meat of Abalone is highly valued and considered to be a delicacy (and even an aph-
rodisiac) in some East Asian countries (Hauck & Sweijd, 1999), where the South African wild
Abalone, not only being heavier than those farmed in Japan and Australia but are also con-
sidered better in terms of fresh flavor and texture, are much sought after as a delicacy in
restaurants in Hong Kong, China and elsewhere in Asia (Chow, 2017). Also, dubbed ‘white
gold’ after the pearly underflesh of the snails but also because of its high price per kilo-
gram. Demand has soared, with it becoming the ‘world’s most valuable shellfish’2
(Steyn, 2017, n.p.).
Due to this demand, Abalone from South Africa has, since the early 1990s, been over-
exploited. By 2017, driven by the continued high demand from the Hong Kong and
Chinese markets, poaching of Abalone, in particular along the Western Cape coastline,
was still rampant, despite the earlier fears of pushing wild stocks into extinction, and its
lucrative nature has continued to fuel its illicit trade to the Far East (Steyn, 2017, n.p.).

Extent of the South African Abalone industry

The extent of the legal Abalone industry in South Africa can be estimated from early export
figures. The first, recorded in 1953, totaled 770 tons (which was also the Total Allowable
Catch (TAC) quota3 at the time), of canned and Abalone exported to Asia. It appears
that this total reached a high in 1965, with a harvest of 2800 tons. But thereafter South
Africa experienced year-on-year declines since wild Abalone stocks started to decline,
due in part not only to over-exploitation of the wild stocks but also to poaching. This irre-
spective of the South African government’s efforts to implement measures to protect it,
inter alia bans on recreational fishing of Abalone (first one occurred in 2003), as well as
to reduce legal annual allowable total catch. However, along the way, there were
changes in the quota system. In 1983, the quota was changed from a production quota
to a whole mass quota to address irregularities in the system. Total weight of one
Abalone being therefore referred to as ‘whole mass’ which included the shell (Tarr,
2003, n.p.).
The reduction in the 2004/2005 and 2005/2006 was largely as a result of the closer
inshore movement of large West Coast rock lobsters that attacked Abalone. The most
affected area of this invasion being between Cape Hangklip to Gansbaai including Herma-
nus – a distance along the southern coastline of about 65 kilometers (Troell et al., 2006,
p. 269).4 In 2008/2009 to 2010/2011 seasons, the legal Abalone fishery (excluding commer-
cial farmed production) was closed with a moratorium placed on all ‘wild’ Abalone extrac-
tion. In July 2010 the quota was re-opened with a small experimental limit of 50 metric
tons (Gordon & Cook, 2013, p. 6) but confined to the False Bay area of the Western
 JOURNAL OF THE INDIAN OCEAN REGION 3

Cape and along certain areas of the Eastern Cape coastline – areas that were not previously
considered part of the traditional commercial Abalone fisheries (DAFF, 2012, p. 6) (Table 1).
However, as the legal quotas were reduced the commercial farming of Abalone in
South Africa had increased from the first harvest of 10 tons in 1997 to 1400 metric tons
in 2015 (Cook, 2016, p. 582). In fact, in 2015 South Africa had become the largest producer
of commercial farmed Abalone (1400 tons) outside Asia (in third place behind China and
Korea) (Cook, 2016, p. 582).
But of more concern was the concomitant reduction in the estimated size of remaining
stocks in the sea for the whole South African coastline (not just the previous Abalone-rich
areas from Cape Columbine to Quoin Point which also showed similar declines in catches
both legal and illegal) with indicated rapid declines from 2003 onwards (Table 2).
These declines in the estimated size of remaining wild stocks are again reflective of the
impact of over-exploitation and poaching.

Factors that stimulated the rise in Abalone poaching

Since the early 1990s, the illegal harvesting and exploitation (poaching) of Abalone in
South Africa has been on the rise (Brick, Muchapondwa, & Visser, 1999, p. 1). Abalone is
considered a prime target for illegal exploitation due to its high value and the fact that
it lives in shallow water (depths less than 10 meters), close to the shoreline making it
easier to harvest (Hauck & Sweijd, 1999, p. 1024).
By the mid-2000s, Markus Bürgener, of the Southern African branch of TRAFFIC5 and
then also a member of the Abalone Scientific Working Group, an advisory body to the
South African Department of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, stated that the: ‘ …
illegal exploitation of Abalone in South Africa is believed to be the most criminali[s]ed

Table 1. Reduction in TAC quotas for Abalone.

Year 1953 1965 1968 1995a 1996/1997
Quota (tons)b 770 2800 386 615 550
Year 2002/2003 2003/2004 2004/2005 2005/2006 2006/2007
Quota (tons) 430 234 204 175 169
Year 2007/2008 2008/2009c 2010/2011 2011/2012 2012/2013
Quota (tons) 75 24 99d 116 95e
Sources: Bürgener (2007, n.p.), Department of Environmental Affairs (1997, n.p.), Gordon and Cook (2013, p. 6), Hauck and
Sweijd (1999, p. 1024) and Tarr (2003, n.p.).
a
Incremental increases occurred between 1968 up to 1995; thereafter, quotas drastically reduced in the face of over-exploi-
tation and increased poaching activity in order to further protect Abalone resources.
b
South Africa changed over to the metric system in 1972.
c
2009/2010 was the moratorium season TAC = 0.
d
This excluded the 50 tons (experimental) instituted in July 2010.
e
This TAC has remained at this level up to 2015.

Table 2. Reduction in estimates of wild stocks of Abalone.

Year 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007
Wild stock estimates (tons) 6096 5543 4866 4544 4194
Year 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012
Wild stock estimates 4071 4122 4168 3606 3364
Source: Statistics South Africa (2015, p. 21).
4 A. MINNAAR ET AL.

wildlife trade in Africa today’ (Bürgener, 2007, n.p.). Ten years later, Bürgener emphatically
stated that: ‘[a]balone poaching is out of control, and after two decades is showing no
signs of slowing down’ (Bürgener, as cited in De Greef, 2016, n.p.).
This increase in Abalone poaching at the end of the 1990s and into the 2000s coincided
with reports of the consolidation of the trade and the formation of sophisticated market-
ing networks with reported connections to the drug trade and organized crime (Hauck &
Sweijd, 1999). At the same time, what was also observed, was the increase in the ‘profes-
sionalization’ and organizational structures, both local and international, of the poaching
operations in the Western Cape (Lambrechts & Goga, 2016, p. 236):
During this period, the poaching activity was concentrated mostly along a stretch of
coastline from just north of Cape Town (Cape Columbine near Paternoster) to Cape
Agulhas (170 kilometers southeast of Cape Town). The increase in this poaching was
despite the fact that there had been numerous seizures of large quantities of Abalone
and many associated arrests (which continue to the present day).
A number of factors have been variously ascribed to the rise in Abalone poaching and
its illicit trade, specifically in the Western Cape Province. But a primary cause put forward
for this escalation of the illegal trade in Abalone appears to be related to political changes
in post-apartheid South Africa. Following the establishment of a new fully democratic gov-
ernment in 1994 and greater emphasis on individual constitutional rights, expectations
were raised among the residents of previously disadvantaged coastal communities who
demanded formalized access to the Abalone resource previously denied them. Transform-
ation of the country’s fisheries was, however, considered too slow by many members of
coastal communities and illegal harvesting and trade increased (Tarr, 2003).
What has also been cited as a root problem to the post-1994 growth in Abalone poach-
ing was the so-called historical legacy of Apartheid where these communities, having been
excluded from legal fishing rights during the Apartheid era, felt that, in the new democracy
post-1994, they were entitled to ‘take’ Abalone from the shoreline adjacent to their coastal
villages. Many community members felt aggrieved at their historical and continued (in the
1990s) exclusion from legal access to Abalone diving rights. This, they argued, ‘forced’
them to continue poaching as a means of survival. They further blamed the government
for the continued economic and social neglect of their areas with its under-developed
living areas as a further driver of their involvement in poaching (Hauck & Sweijd, 1999,
p. 1028; Lambrechts & Goga, 2016, pp. 237–238).
Steinberg (2005, p. 2) outlined four additional primary reasons, namely: the precipitate
slide, starting in the early 1990s, of the value of the South African currency, the Rand,
against the U.S. dollar; the pre-existing presence in South Africa of a large and highly effi-
cient Chinese organized crime network (see Gastrow, 2001 for more information on the
Chinese Triads presence in South Africa); the tardiness and obstacles faced by the govern-
ment departments in devising an integrated, efficient and functioning effectively system
of border compounded by the lack of security measures at both sea- and air-ports-of-entry
(see Minnaar, 2003 for more detailed information on border security regime) and ‘the
mutation in the socio-political identities of the coloured fishing communities on the
Abalone-rich shoreline during South Africa’s transition to democracy’ (Steinberg, 2005,
p. 2).
But a further factor was the involvement in the mid-1990s, of some of the major drug
traffickers branching out (diversifying) from Cape Town’s gang-based drug market. These
 JOURNAL OF THE INDIAN OCEAN REGION 5

criminals moved into the Abalone-rich fishing villages such as Hawston and Kleinmond
and took control of sizeable portions of the illicit Abalone market (Steinberg, 2005, p. 3).
Members of these communities were drawn into these Abalone poaching operations,
not only from the ranks of the unemployed but also from poverty-struck families, and
even schoolchildren in a variety of functions, all organized to avoid detection by law enfor-
cement officers (both police and environmental protection units) (Steinberg, 2005, p. 6).
So by the mid-1990s, Abalone poaching in South Africa had become a very lucrative
criminal enterprise as a ‘highly organised, multi-million dollar illicit industry, controlled
by street gangs on the shoreline and by transnational criminal enterprises on the trade
routes to East Asia’ (Steinberg, 2005, p. 1).
In fact, a broad spectrum of role players is involved in a criminal hierarchy of poaching
activities. The individual roles can range from divers, bag carriers, assistants, look-outs,
transporters or buyers or even as diversions (drawing local police away from poaching
areas) (Hauck & Sweijd, 1999, p. 1028). In essence, the former ‘casual’ traditional fishery
had, by the mid-1990s, become a highly organized illicit fishery, facilitated by international
syndicates who exported the product illegally largely through Hong Kong to other Asian
countries (Raemaekers et al., 2011, p. 438).
Being of such a lucrative nature, it was no wonder then that locals flocked to become
part of the Abalone poaching operations in their areas. But there were a number of con-
comitant social issues emanating from Abalone poaching. These included the partici-
pation in poaching operations by young members of these communities, often still
school going, the evidence of more money circulating among local participants but this
also led to an increase in spending on alcohol and drugs leading to increased levels of
use and resulting abuse. There was also a noticeable increase in the rise of other
related criminal activity, for example, theft out of vehicles and even burglaries. Locals
also felt intimidated by the presence of the criminal gangs, many feared for their lives
(of being caught in the middle of gang violence contesting the Abalone resources).
Those not wanting to become involved also lived in a constant state of fear, suffering
from intimidation if they in any way (assumed or otherwise) posed a threat to any of
the poaching activities. Accordingly, many members of the community were simply too
afraid to oppose the poaching and were reluctant to become involved in any efforts to
combat it (Hauck & Sweijd, 1999, pp. 1027–1029).
As a consequence, Abalone became embedded in the Western Cape’s illicit economy.
Chinese criminal syndicates would barter cheaply acquired chemicals used in synthetic
drug manufacture for high-value Abalone, while the Western Cape drug lords bartered
cheaply acquired Abalone for high-value drugs. Accordingly, those drug lords that gained
control of significant volumes of Abalone were able to monopolize the manufacture and
sale of low-priced methaqualone (‘crystal meth’). Very quickly, in the post-1994 period, a sym-
biotic survival relationship between Western Cape drug traffickers and control over Abalone
sources was rapidly established with the Abalone so sourced used as a barter product for syn-
thetic drug products with the Chinese Syndicates. In turn these Chinese Syndicates smuggled
the exchanged Abalone out of the country via well-organized trade routes through neighbor-
ing African states and on to the Far East (Steinberg, 2005, p. 3).
Other factors contributing to an increase in illegal harvesting included budget cuts for
many relevant government departments, including Marine Coastal Management and the
South African Police Service, and continued unemployment and poverty (Tarr, 2003). Of
6 A. MINNAAR ET AL.

course, the continued high value of Abalone, together with the fact that it lives in the
shallow intertidal areas of the seashore, makes it a prime target for illegal exploitation.
A further factor to the growth in Abalone poaching from 1995 onwards was the (per-
ceived) widespread corruption among officials from various government departments
ranging from fisheries officers, environmental officials and even members of the police.
The latter was a particular impediment to any crime combatting operations and the
lack of law enforcement success impacts seriously on efforts to reduce poaching activities.
The corruption also increases the reluctance of local residents to either report poaching to
local police (who might be corrupt) or co-operate in any way with the authorities either by
becoming ‘informers’ or active volunteer patrollers or even just to act as the ‘eyes and ears’
on the ground for the law enforcement agencies (Hauck & Sweijd, 1999, p. 1029).

High prices continue to drive demand for Abalone

A final factor that has been a driver for continued poaching of Abalone in South Africa has
been the high prices received for it in the Far East. In terms of prices it must be noted that
the size of exported Abalone also influences value, with larger sizes commanding higher
prices per kilogram, hence premium prices tend to be paid for legally exported South
African Abalone with approximately 10–12 Abalone per kilogram, whereas the smaller
sizes from other international waters would average 16–20 per kilogram. But generally
the illegal South African Abalone catch that reaches Asian markets is smaller – often
below the legal limit size6 – so the smuggling syndicates would not receive the
optimum prices received by the legal exports (Gordon & Cook, 2013, p. 7).
In the early 1990s, after many years of relatively stable international Abalone prices, the
price per kilogram of Abalone increased from USD$10 to USD$32 per kilogram whole
mass. During the 2000/2001 season, the price for Abalone per kilogram ranged
between USD$32 and $42 for live, whole product, frozen, in-shell (unshucked) Abalone,
while dried Abalone sold on the wholesale markets in Hong Kong for approximately
USD$30/kg, with shucked Abalone for as high as USD$80–$86/kg (Hauck & Sweijd,
1999, p. 1025; Pulfrich, 2001, n.p.; Raemaekers et al., 2011, p. 438).
These high prices, combined with the weakening of the South African Rand, converted
into a roughly 12-fold increase in monetary value in terms of Rands. By 2007 the price per
kilogram had reached an all-time high of USD$55 for legally exported Abalone, which at
the time was the equivalent of R389 per kilogram (Raemaekers et al., 2011, p. 438). But with
the 2008 and subsequent global economic downturn, the prices per kilogram had
dropped and in 2011 the average price for whole unshucked Abalone was again
around US$30/kg (Gordon & Cook, 2013, p. 7).
By mid-2017 restaurants in China and Hong Kong continued to serve up fresh Abalone
at exceedingly high prices with one fresh Abalone (the South African Abalone would be
about 80–120 grams fresh weight out of the shell) alone costing up to HK$2000 (USD
$250) (about R3500). Many of the old-style seafood shops in Hong Kong were also
selling dried Abalone with the dried Abalone from South Africa being priced per kilo
and in accordance with size ranging from a low of HK$4500 to a high of HK$9800 per kilo-
gram (2017 conversion rate these prices would be the equivalent of R8000 (USD$550) to
R18,000 (USD$1200) per dried kilogram of Abalone). But even in South Africa an under-
ground market for Abalone booms. If you know where to obtain them, you can purchase
 JOURNAL OF THE INDIAN OCEAN REGION 7

dried Abalone for between R1200/USD$85–R1400/USD$100 per kilogram (June 2017

prices) (Chow, 2017).
The extent and impact of Abalone poaching operations in South Africa can be (partially)
gauged and estimated from seizure and confiscations of Abalone by the authorities.

Confiscations of illicit Abalone

It is estimated that an average of approximately 14% of all poached abalone in South
Africa are seized and confiscated by the authorities and the police. This percentage has
been used to then estimate the total number of illegally poached Abalone (DAFF, 2012,
p. 8). But with the reduction of the commercial legal quotas during the early 2000s, the
illegally harvested Abalone continued to escalate. By 2002, more Abalone was being con-
fiscated by the enforcement authorities per year than was being harvested by the com-
mercial fishery7 (Tarr, 2003). Furthermore, the seizures of poached Abalone were
increasingly exhibiting large numbers of undersized8 specimens, and the fact that the
depleted stocks at the time were under even more pressure due to the inshore invasion
of lobsters that fed off the young abalone (Bürgener, 2007, n.p.). After the partial
opening of the quota in July 2010, there also appeared to have been a noticeable increase
in poaching starting in January 2012 (DAFF, 2012, p. 8) (Table 3).
These levels of increased confiscations up to 2006, therefore, allude to the fact that it
can be assumed that even larger amounts were being smuggled undetected out of the
country to the Far East. But the subsequent declines in the ensuing years were sympto-
matic of declining wild stocks also with noticeably more juvenile (small) specimens
reported amongst the confiscations.
However, while it is acknowledged that confiscations are only a small percentage of the
illegal catch, it can be gauged from other sources how large in actual fact is the amount of
Abalone smuggled out of the country if one refers to the figures supplied by the auth-
orities in Hong Kong of totals imported9 into that country. During 2002 more than
200,000 kilograms of frozen, shucked and over 100,000 kilograms of dried Abalone
were imported into Hong Kong. But of more concern was the fact that these import
records showed that all of this Abalone was imported from the Southern African countries
of Mozambique, Namibia, Tanzania, Swaziland and Zimbabwe. This was a further indi-
cation that the illegal Abalone was all being smuggled out of the country since Abalone
is endemic to South Africa (and not these Southern African countries) and was also

Table 3. Seized and confiscated Abalone.

Year 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999
Confiscationsa 35,000 90,000 80,000 75,000 180,000 120,000
Year 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005
Confiscations 360,000 480,000 ±1 million 720,000 740,000 680,000
Year 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011b
Confiscations 1,200,000c 880,000 580,000 540,000 530,000 –
Source: DAFF (2012, pp. 6–7).
a
1000s rounded off.
b
After 2011 DAFF did not report on numbers confiscated Abalone since they felt it was a crime/police reporting issue with
SAPS crime statistics merely mentioning arrests for marine crime and estimates of value of seized (including such items as
ski-boats, vehicles and equipment used in poaching and not individual numbers of abalone confiscated.
c
All-time record high.
8 A. MINNAAR ET AL.

corroborated by the legal South African exporters who had indicated that they simply do
not export Abalone, in any form whatsoever, to any other African countries. In other words,
it can be stated with a good deal of certainty that these imports into Hong Kong originated
from illegal harvesting, smuggled to these other African countries, and then re-exported to
Hong Kong. (One possible exception being some imports from Namibia, which at the time
had one commercial farming operation.) (Willock et al., 2004, p. 30).
Further compounding the problem of poached Abalone is that in Asian countries it is not
protected nor is it viewed as an illicit commodity. This fact further complicates the South
African authorities fight against Abalone poaching, since once it is smuggled out of the
country to Asia, if those caught by Asian authorities in possession of it are seldom prose-
cuted let alone the consignment of illegally exported Abalone returned to South Africa.
This approach by Asian authorities also makes more difficult any cross-border co-operation
between enforcement agencies (Lambrechts & Goga, 2016, p. 235) (Table 4).
These estimates by DAFF differed somewhat from those of other observers. In the 2008/
2009 season – the first that the moratorium on legal quota extraction was in place – it was
estimated that the illegal catch had totaled a minimum of 2000 metric tons. In other
words, more than four times the 2002/03 legal quota (Cook & Gordon, 2010, p. 570). In
2012 TRAFFIC estimated the illegal catch at 1700 tons while in 2015, according to Bürge-
ner, of the Southern Africa branch of TRAFFIC, the total legal wild Abalone harvest in South
Africa was 105 tons, while their estimates for poaching for the same year was a total of
3477 tons (Bürgener as cited in Steyn, 2017, n.p.). But at the DAFF Abalone Indaba (con-
ference), held in Cape Town on 3 February 2016, it was being reported that ‘the war on
abalone poaching is being lost’ accompanied by fears of the continued decimation of
wild Abalone stocks as a result of abalone poaching having reached their highest levels
since 2003 (Nkalane, 2016, n.p.). At this conference, it was also estimated that in 2014
seven million Abalone were poached (up from the six million reported in 2011). DAFF
put the value of this illegal trade at more than R1 billion (USD$70 million) a year
(Nkalane, 2016, n.p.; Platt, 2016, n.p.).
The DAFF estimated that, between 2001 and 2016, 75 million Abalone – the equivalent
of 40,000 tons – have been extracted from South African waters, of which an estimated
30,000 tons were imported into either Hong Kong or China. This is more than 10 times
the current legal quota. As a result, the Department feared that if illegal harvesting and
the poaching continued at this rate of extraction there will occur ‘a complete collapse
[in the wild] within about a decade’ (DAFF as cited in Steyn, 2017, n.p.; De Greef, 2016, n.p.).

Law Enforcement efforts to combat Abalone poaching

Towards the end of the 1990s, a number of initiatives were launched to address the high
levels of Abalone poaching. One of the foundational moves to recognize it not only as an

Table 4. Estimated numbers of Abalone poached in South Africa (2000–2011).

Year 2000 2002 2004 2005 2006
Estimate of poached numbers ±3 million 4.7 million ±8 million ±5 million 6 million
Year 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011
Estimate poached 5.3 million 3.9 million 4 million ±5 million 6 million
Source: Daff (2012, p. 6, 2014, p. 8).
 JOURNAL OF THE INDIAN OCEAN REGION 9

environmental problem but also as an organized crime one was the decision in 1997 to
place ‘marine poaching’ on the list of South African Police Service (SAPS) priority crimes
(South African Police Service, 1998). In addition, the Organised Crime Unit of the SAPS
set up a specialized Marine Investigation Unit, based in Cape Town, to target the syndi-
cates involved in the illegal trade of marine products (Hauck & Sweijd, 1999, p. 1030).
To also investigate the organized crime aspects of Abalone poaching the special inves-
tigating unit, the Directorate of Special Operations (DSO) (also known as the Scorpions and
linked to the National Prosecuting Authority) became involved in the fight against Abalone
poaching by trying to go after and prosecute the syndicate leaders. But as always, the dif-
ficulty of getting hard evidence or the lower-down-the-chain syndicate operators to will-
ingly testify against them led to few successful prosecutions for organized crime activities
(Redpath, 2002, n.p.).
In addition, in August 2000 a joint anti-poaching initiative was launched between the
Marine and Coastal Management (MCM) of the Department of Environmental Affairs
and Tourism (DEAT), theSAPS and the National Defence Force (SANDF). Named as Oper-
ation Neptune II,10 it literally plunged the law enforcement agencies into an ‘armed
battle’ to save the country’s Abalone stocks from extinction at the hands of poachers
and international smuggling syndicates (Marshall, 2002, n.p.; Steinberg, 2005, p. 7).
The endemic (suspected) levels of corruption among local police officials and members
of the local police stations in Western Cape coastal areas was one of the main motivations
for the implementation of Operation Neptune II.11 According to Steinberg (2005, p. 8) ‘The
idea was that abalone poaching could only be properly policed by outsiders.’ But this in
itself led to the emergence of systemic problems in Neptune’s anti-poaching activities
since police officials from outside of the Western Cape were placed on what was called
‘detached duty’ for two months at a time although paid an ‘away-from-home’ allowance.
This resulted in Operation Neptune’s personnel with ‘mixed and uneven levels of motiv-
ation, skill and knowledge. For many, patrolling the coastline was anything but a vocation;
it was a paid, two-month break from their real jobs’ (Steinberg, 2005, p. 8).
At the time, it was estimated that approximately R400 million a year in revenue was
being lost to the Western Cape economy due to the illegal harvesting of Abalone. This
was compounded by accusations that one of the reasons that the police were unable
to deal with the poaching problem was due to ‘extensive corruption’ (Redpath, 2002, n.p.).
Operation Neptune II deployed approximately 70 staff on a full-time basis throughout
the year. They made use of high-speed vessels and divers from the South African Navy,
sniffer dogs, unmanned aerial vehicles, helicopters and fixed-wing aircraft (Steinberg,
2005, p. 7; Tarr, 2003). A modicum level of success was achieved in its first three
months of operations with the arrest of 286 poachers and the confiscation of 15,432
abalone. In addition, 15 vehicles, boats and trailers and 440 items of diving equipment
were seized (South African Navy, 2015, n.p.). But, despite these successes, there was no
indication that the rate of Abalone poaching decreased in any way.
Operation Neptune II did, however, encounter strong opposition and resentment in the
policed areas along the coast. On a number of occasions, they encountered quite violent
reactions and were literally chased out or prevented (hindered) from doing their policing
work in these areas. In its first season in particular, there were numerous, often violent,
confrontations (likened to a ‘war’) between Abalone fishing communities, where poaching
10 A. MINNAAR ET AL.

was rife, and the police implementing Operation Neptune (see Gosling, 2006, n.p.;
Redpath, 2002).
The continuation of such confrontations was symptomatic of these fishing commu-
nities’ involvement where ‘[e]ntire communities in fishing villages are being sucked into
[Abalone poaching] support activities’ (Redpath, 2002, n.p.). With their very livelihoods
being threatened, it was no wonder these communities did not lend their support to
the anti-poaching crime prevention operations of Operation Neptune.
Such incidents of confrontation between law enforcement officials and locals led to tac-
tical changes in Abalone anti-poaching operations, namely: that the police no longer tried
to arrest poachers on the beach or even in the villages but preferred to set up roadblocks
on the main roads leading to Cape Town or even further afield on the routes north to
Johannesburg. They also tried to plan operations based on crime information and
tipoffs from locals. In essence, much of the policing of Abalone poaching attempted to
apply the principles of intelligence-led policing, as well as trying to get locals to be
more supportive of their efforts. This was based on a DEAT awareness campaign around
publicizing directly in affected communities of the impact of poaching on the sustainabil-
ity and future survival of wild Abalone stocks. As Kleinschmidt had stated at the time: ‘We
urgently need to turn the tide of public opinion against the people who are intent on
destroying the abalone resource for the purpose of enriching themselves’ (Marshall,
2002, n.p.).
However, irrespective of such obstacles and unco-operative local communities, and
other constraints such as limited annual budgets, the length of coastline to police and
embedded corruption of local law enforcement officers, Operation Neptune’s officers
were able to seize large amounts of Abalone with numbers of people arrested, as well
as confiscating equipment and property. Their operations were supported by the estab-
lishment in 2003, near the sea town of Hermanus, of South Africa’s first Environmental
Court, set up specifically to deal with Abalone-related criminal cases (Tarr, 2003).
The poaching depletion of the wild Abalone stocks in the Western Cape coastal region
led, ironically, to the expansion of poaching along the Eastern Cape Province coastline on
either side of the city of Port Elizabeth, particularly in the Cape St Francis area (75 kilo-
meters west of Port Elizabeth). This ‘new’ poaching area expansion led to a Port Eliza-
beth-based Joint Abalone Anti-Poaching Task Force between the SAPS and the DAFF’s
Marine and Coastal Management inspection unit being set up, which in 2008 estimated
that the regions’ Abalone poachers were part of five or six syndicates with a total fleet
of 30 boats operating out of Port Elizabeth (Rogers, 2008, n.p.).
Operation Neptune came to an end in 2004 and was replaced by Operation Trident
replaced Operation Neptune in 2004. Operation Trident, aimed to focus more on intelli-
gence gathering thereby leading to removing the syndicates out of the Abalone poaching
scene. When setting it up, it was proposed that additional environmental/‘green’ courts be
set up in order to ensure higher prosecution rates and stiffer jail times be administered to
arrested Abalone poachers. Operation Trident also called for improved on-the-ground
enforcement by the additional deployment of another 70 SAPS officers to the Overberg
district and the appointment of a dedicated Conservation official and a 24-hour call
center to report poaching (Van Dalen, 2013, n.p.).12
But at the beginning of 2008, these specialist anti-poaching operations were disbanded
even while the local anti-poaching activities remained a co-operative joint venture. The
 JOURNAL OF THE INDIAN OCEAN REGION 11

situation reverted to where conservation personnel of the Marine Investigation Unit of

DAFF would patrol the coastline and when poaching activity observed or reported
would contact the local police in the area to assist in making arrests or setting up road-
blocks in the area. So in effect, other than continued investigations of all organized
crime activity by specialist units such as the Hawks (who replaced the Scorpions when
the latter was disbanded and incorporated into the SAPS in 2008), the Abalone anti-poach-
ing campaign reverted largely to a reactive form of policing (and not crime preventing in
terms of proactive or intelligence-led policing).
The effectiveness of such Abalone anti-poaching operations was further constrained by
the understaffing and inadequately equipped personnel of the DAFF coastal inspectors’
unit in the Western Cape. For instance, in 2016, to cover a coastline of more than 150 kilo-
meters from Cape Point to Cape Hangklip, they only had a force of 15 persons divided into
three shifts. In other words, only five persons on a shift to cover this stretch of coastline –
an area reputedly having more than 1000 active poachers. Furthermore, the local SAPS
personnel, with the withdrawal of Operation Neptune’s specialists and specialized equip-
ment and resources, were simply not able, within their other policing responsibilities, to
deal effectively with poachers or the requisite ocean equipment and boats to confront
them once in the water (Change, 2016).

Trafficking operations and smuggle routes

The poaching of Abalone in South Africa was, no doubt crucially facilitated, besides all the
above-mentioned factors driving its poaching, by the established smuggle/trafficking net-
works to the Far East, largely run by Chinese Syndicates in South Africa. It was estimated in
2002 that 95% of the poached South African Abalone was smuggled out of the country to
the Far East, mainly to Hong Kong and mainland China (Redpath, 2002, n.p.; Willock et al.,
2004, p. 30). But these smuggle routes varied in modus operandi. Very little is exported
directly out of South African commercial ports. The majority of the smuggled Abalone
appears to leave South Africa either through land borders where security and inspections
were lacking and corruption through bribery is rife or in light aircraft leaving from small
unregistered isolated landing strips – the chances of detection (risk) of the latter mode
of transporting abalone is very low (Steinberg, 2005, p. 4).
Furthermore, the movement was facilitated with either the bribing of customs officers
to not inspect a consignment or to accept fraudulent export permits with false goods
description declarations. Once in a neighboring state, it is exported through these other
Southern African states such as Zimbabwe, Mozambique and Swaziland largely to Hong
Kong. In these countries, there is no law against the exporting of South African abalone
without a permit. In other words, once in these countries, it can be ‘legally’ exported to
the Far East (Steinberg, 2005, p. 4).
One other means of getting poached Abalone to the Far East has been to transport it to
neighboring Namibia (which has a small legal Abalone farming operation) and then bring-
ing it back to South Africa as ‘foreign’ sourced Abalone for legal export from South Africa
(usually from OR Tambo International Airport, formerly the Johannesburg International
Airport) (Redpath, 2002, n.p.). This ‘smuggle’ route was confirmed when in late 2004 the
Hong Kong Customs authorities had contacted the South African Customs at OR Tambo
International Airport to inform them that they had detected various consignments,
12 A. MINNAAR ET AL.

adding up to more than a ton of dried Abalone, had arrived in Hong Kong from OR Tambo
Airport (Steinberg, 2005, p. 5).
Another means of getting the Abalone ‘legally’ out of the country has been the buying
by the criminal syndicates of confiscated Abalone Marine and Coastal Management auc-
tions, then entering false totals on the permits issued to cover the export of the confis-
cated Abalone by adding additional amounts from their own poached stockpiles
(Redpath, 2002, n.p.).
The preferred form of smuggled Abalone being in a dried state since it is, firstly light
(only 10% by weight of fresh Abalone shucked meat); and secondly, difficult to identify
as dried Abalone and not other dried fish products. It is simply not practical to try and
smuggle out live or frozen abalone since it has a particularly distinctive and strong
smell and would thus be difficult to transport or ship undetected. As a dried end
product Abalone has a number of advantages, namely: besides its dried to raw weight
advantage, it can be safely stored for a considerable time. This facilitates a long period
of accumulation so that it can be shipped out in large amounts (bulk). It can also be dis-
guised as another product – a factor that facilitates its movement through South African
border posts where Customs and Excise and border police officers are not trained to
recognize and identify it as dried Abalone. Once it reaches its end destination it is
simply rehydrated and returned to its natural state (Steinberg, 2005, p. 4).
Drying facilities have been found by police investigators from Cape Town all along the
route to Johannesburg and further north up to the border of Limpopo Province with Zim-
babwe. Entire houses and even warehouse buildings have been turned into drying
‘factories’. But as these drying operations were being successfully disrupted the police
began to discover that the Chinese Syndicates were moving their drying operations to iso-
lated rural areas. A typical case of such relocation to a rural area was found on a remote
farm near Dordrecht in the Eastern Cape Province (just over 400 kilometers inland and
north of Port Elizabeth), which was raided, on a tipoff, in late October 2007. The raid
revealed what appeared to be an Abalone processing plant operated allegedly by one
of the biggest Abalone trafficking syndicates as then uncovered in South Africa. It was sus-
pected that the dried Abalone was being flown out of the region in a light aircraft from a
nearby private airstrip (Salmon & Salmon, 2007, n.p.).
Raids on drying facilities have become an integral part of combatting Abalone poach-
ing and often based on ‘tipoffs.’ These raids are specifically aimed at disrupting poaching
operations by forcing syndicates to frequently relocate operations particularly to more
remote smallholdings/farms in the rural areas. But these disruptions did not seem to mate-
rially or visibly reduce the continued large scale of actual poaching, especially in the
Western Cape. But there have been a number of ‘big busts’ that can be counted as suc-
cesses in the fight against Abalone poaching. A new approach was a seizure in February
2016 right at OR Tambo International Airport where South African customs officials,
making use of a specially trained, abalone-sniffing dog, found dried Abalone wrapped
in plastic weighing 577 kilograms and valued at R2 million (USD$140,000) (Sanchez,
2016, n.p.).
Another police and Fisheries Department officials raid (on a smallholding near Lange-
baan on the West Coast 125 kilometers north of Cape Town) in April 2016 turned up
stacked racks of drying Abalone with an estimated worth of R9 million (approximately
USD$650,000) (Le Roux, 2016, n.p.). Other successes in disrupting drying operations
 JOURNAL OF THE INDIAN OCEAN REGION 13

occurred in February 2017 when the police, Western Cape DAFF inspectors and Customs in
a joint operation seized a container in Cape Town harbor, already packed and ready for
shipment, and simultaneously raided drying facilities in the Cape Town suburb of Milner-
ton suburb, which yielded up a total of 27,182 dried and 13,837 wet Abalone. Another con-
tainer with 12.7 tons of Abalone was also later seized at the harbor. The total value of
seized Abalone being an estimated R30 million (USD$2 million) (Wilson, 2017, n.p.).
Other successes in October and November 2017 included a haul in Mfuleni near Khayelit-
sha Township on the Cape Flats worth R3 million and one in Caledon (112 kilometers
south-east of Cape Town) of 67,000 units of Abalone worth an estimated R5 million.
The latter had only occurred because members of the community had complained of a
foul fishy smell emanating from the premises in the Caledon industrial area (Fisher,
2017a, n.p., 2017b, n.p.).

Concluding remarks
However, irrespective of the increased anti-poaching and compliance efforts (such as
Operation Neptune), the introduction of stricter penalties13 for offenders and stricter con-
trols on international trade via the CITES listing on Schedule III (listed on 3 May 2007 but
abandoned in June 2010) (see Bürgener, 2007, n.p.; Morgan, 2010, n.p.)., the poaching con-
tinued at high levels in direct contrast to the diminishing returns from legal fishing and the
accompanying reduction in quotas.
Currently, with the continuation at excessive levels, Abalone poaching in South Africa
remains a huge threat to wild Abalone stocks. This threat has been compounded by the
current lack of credible and effective deterrence mechanisms against Abalone poaching
in particular. There have been regular calls from 2014 onwards for the reinstitution of
Special Law Enforcement Task Forces such as Operations Neptune II and Trident. What
anti-poaching operations are being instituted at the local level need to be revisited in
terms of strategy. In other words, the current method of waiting for Abalone to be
poached before intervening (inter alia with roadblock confiscations and raids on drying
factories) and back to the proactive interventionist initiatives of these two initiatives.
However, this would need the establishment of a specialized reactive Task Force, suitably
funded and equipped with the appropriate type of equipment so as to intervene right at
the water line as well as in the sea itself. But the SAPS itself is constrained operationally,
manpower and resources-wise by needing to focus on other priority crimes in particular
violent crime which remains at unacceptably endemic levels countrywide. Furthermore,
there needs to be a refocus on dealing with the organized crime syndicates behind the
continued facilitation of high poaching levels of Abalone. But this would also require con-
centrating on the gang and drug trafficking links, especially in terms of intelligence and
evidence gathering for proactive policing on syndicate targets thus identified. The focus
on the international trafficking/smuggling routes needs the South African government to
continue further discussion with regard to better co-ordination of import checking and con-
signment inspections with the customs and port authorities in Hong Kong and China.
Finally, the campaign against Abalone poaching needs to be rebooted and re-invigo-
rated in the affected communities themselves by means of involving – or more specifically
getting the buy-in of all members of communities. Crucially, community support and
involvement in crime prevention by means of awareness campaigns. The link between
14 A. MINNAAR ET AL.

poaching depletion and saving the resource for their own future utilization through
resource ownership and resource management – the so-called common interests
approach – in order to fully protect the resource and combating of poaching crime. In
other words, devolving responsibility for saving and building up the Abalone stocks to
each individual community member through community-based intervention in avoidance
of the previously confrontational law and order approach popular with the authorities. The
latter, which in the long run has proven so ineffective in combatting, let alone reducing,
levels of Abalone poaching, needs to be replaced with a more co-operative approach
involving to a greater extent all role players at all levels.

Notes
1. Further east, along the Eastern Cape Province coastline, Abalone stocks were considered to be
‘discontinuous and sparsely distributed’ (Department of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries
(DAFF), 2012, p. 5). Accordingly, outside of the Western Cape fishery areas, no commercial
fishery for abalone was implemented along the South-East and East coasts until harvesting
of Abalone along this stretch of the coastline was allowed in July 2010 with an experimental
quota of 31.5 metric tons (out of the total 150-ton quota allocated) and granting of so-called
subsistence permits (DAFF, 2012, pp. 5–6; Gordon & Cook, 2013, p. 6).
2. During the Chinese New Year period (around February every year), prices for Abalone can
reach as high as USD$1000/kg (Bürgener, 2007).
3. The annual catch quotas are set by the Department of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries
(DAFF).
4. When lobsters move into shallow waters, they feed on juvenile vulnerable abalone and the
spiny sea urchins under which these very young Abalone seek refuge until their shells are
large and hard enough to protect them from predators (Troell et al., 2006, p. 269).
5. TRAFFIC, linked to the World Wildlife Fund and the International Union for Conservation of
Nature (IUCN), is a nonprofit organization that monitors trade in global illicit wildlife.
6. Since 1986, the South African Abalone fishery has been regulated by a minimum legal size of
138 mm shell length and 114 mm shell breadth (Department of Environmental Affairs (DEA),
1997).
7. In 2003 commercial farmed production of Abalone in South Africa had increased to 515 metric
tons; by 2006 to 900 tons (Burger, 2007); 1023 tons in 2010 and in 2015 to 1400 metric tons
(Cook, 2016, p. 582).
8. The illegal harvesting of Abalone largely disregards the size of abalone poached with almost
two-thirds of confiscated abalone found to be below minimum legal size (138 mm shell length
and 114 mm shell breadth). As a result, most of the illegally caught abalone are taken before
having had the opportunity to reproduce which adds further pressure on depleted stocks
(DAFF, 2014, pp. 6–7).
9. Export data for Abalone are not available from the South African branch of Customs and Excise
since South Africa does not have a specific Harmonized System Customs code for the species.
10. Its forerunner, also called Operation Neptune was started in 1997 and not a co-operative one
such as Operation Neptune II.
11. Corruption was not only confined to the police. In 2002, 13 officials based in the Western Cape
of MCM, the government conservation body, were dismissed for corruption (Redpath, 2002).
12. Pieter Van Dalen was the Democratic Party’s Shadow Deputy Minister of Agriculture, Forestry
and Fisheries.
13. The Marine Living Resources Act 18 of 1998 specifies penalties of up to R2 million or a period of
imprisonment up to five years for the contravention of permit regulations. In October 2003,
the regulations to the Act were amended to increase fines for contravention of certain
other regulations from a previous maximum of R40,000–R800,000 (see Marine Living Resources
Act 18 of 1998: New Regulations, 2004).
 JOURNAL OF THE INDIAN OCEAN REGION 15

Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors
Anthony Minnaar is a Research Professor in the Department of Criminology & Security Science in the
School of Criminal Justice of the College of Law at the University of South Africa. His research inter-
ests are broadly in the applied criminal justice studies field and has published widely on topics
ranging from police use of force to firearms controls; regulation and oversight of the private security
industry in South Africa; CCTV surveillance systems for security and neighbourhood safety/crime pre-
vention; aspects of cybercrime, cybersecurity and information security; security measures at sea/air
ports-of-entry; rural crime and rural safety & security; and conservation crime inter alia rhino
poaching.
Leandri van Schalkwyk has been a Lecturer in the Department of Criminology & Security Science in
the School of Criminal Justice of the College of Law at the University of South Africa since January
2010. She obtained an MTech in Security Management in 2012 with a dissertation titled: An inves-
tigation of safety and security measures at secondary schools in Tshwane, South Africa. Her other
current research interests include campus security & safety; mega-sporting event security; the use
of dogs in crime prevention; abalone poaching. She is currently busy with a PhD on the topic of:
The development of an integrated approach to the management of security at international airports:
Case study of OR Tambo International Airport, Johannesburg.
Sarika Kader has been a Lecturer in the Department of Criminology & Security Science in the School
of Criminal Justice of the College of Law at the University of South Africa since January 2010. In 2010,
she obtained an MTech in Security Management with the title: An investigation of the bombing of
Automated Teller Machines (ATMs) with the Intent to steal cash contents: Case study from Gauteng.
Her current research interests include: campus security & safety; abalone poaching; investigation of
cybercrime. She is currently busy with a PhD on the topic of: The investigation of crime in cyberspace:
A South African perspective.

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