Local cattle rustlers hit back
Pini Bothoko | Wednesday August 8, 2018 13:30
For a while police have been battling with cross-border stock theft in which South African rustlers were invading Botswana to steal cattle, but now it seems locals are hitting back.
“We have been battling with cross-border stock theft with fingers pointing to South Africa, but that seems to have changed, as we have discovered that Batswana also steal unbranded cattle that side to brand them here and sell them back in South Africa,” the Botswana Police Service’s (BPS) public relations officer, Dipheko Motube said.
Motube added that a majority of farmers in South Africa do not brand their cattle, something that local thieves have picked up on to use in their advantage.
“Recently we retrieved 17 unbranded cattle that were stolen from Magoswane village in South Africa after the suspect who was tracking them ran away after seeing the police,” Motube said.