Stock theft syndicate gives police hard time

Unemployed young men and boys of school going age are busy cutting out a career in cattle rustling. They are part of an organised cartel of criminals whose main job is to steal cattle from farms and communal freehold pastures. Sometimes they are bold enough to raid a kraal. They then put their brands on the stolen cattle. A police source says the cartel operate in Kweneng to Kgatleng, covering almost all the cattle-posts in the two districts. Sometimes their 'operations' take them beyond the Dibete cordon fence into the expansive Central District.

Though it is not clear where the cartel's base is, investigations by police and Bakgatla royals and tribesmen have unearthed a man they suspect to be the mastermind. In most the of arrests and interrogations, one name kept coming up.