Govt must crack whip on Cross border crime
Mmegi Editor | Monday June 8, 2026 06:00
“Betrayal hurts, but knowing
who was betraying hurts even more.”
- Garima Soni
What the men of Ditlharapa, Molete and neighbouring villages uncovered is a cross-border enterprise. The modus operandi, as the suspect himself reportedly confessed, is industrial: groups operating in multiple villages, fences cut with impunity, stolen goats walked into South Africa, warehoused at Makhubung, then sold in batches of 200 to a commercial farmer in Lichtenberg. This is organised crime with a ready market on the other side of the line. For every goat that crosses illegally, a Motswana farmer loses not just an animal but a piece of his children’s school fees, his ploughing capital, his dignity. And our border, which ought to be a barrier, has become a thoroughfare.
The Government must stop treating this as a routine policing matter and confront it as a bilateral crisis. What emerges from the Ramatlabama commander’s remarks is a picture of a thinly stretched, under-armed local police force that does its best but cannot match the thieves’ mobility and firepower. Officers stationed in border villages are reportedly unarmed, while the criminals from South Africa carry weapons. That is an indefensible state of affairs. Gaborone must urgently engage Pretoria at the highest level, not through bureaucratic nods, but through a sharp, jointly resourced operation that targets the entire value chain: the receivers at Makhubung, the white commercial farmer alleged to be a bulk buyer, and the networks that melt back into our communities. If South Africa is serious about rural safety and biosecurity, it has every reason to cooperate.
And biosecurity is the second ticking bomb this story lays bare. The report notes that Foot and Mouth Disease (FMD) restrictions already prevent the return of recovered animals. Yet the same porous border that lets out goats can just as easily let in FMD-saturated meat and products. The North West Province is in the grip of an outbreak, and our own Zone 11 remains under threat. Every cut fence is a gap not only for thieves but for a virus that could devastate the national herd. The minister has pleaded with farmers to plug gaps with tree bushes, a desperate, make-do appeal that underlines the absence of a proper, funded barrier. It is not enough. Government must resource a border that works for both security and veterinary control, and it must do so now.
Bail should be opposed vigorously. Investigations must not stall once three men are in custody; new cases are still being recorded, meaning the tentacles are wide. The information already extracted from Seme about his village-level operatives must be acted upon without delay. If large-scale South African farmers are complicit, they too must face legal consequences, and that requires Botswana to formally request mutual legal assistance and follow through.