SHAUN SMILLIE and Sapa
Call it a hunch, but station commander Lieutenant- Colonel Karel Swanepoel thought there was something strange about the bag a man was carrying along a footpath in Kameeldrift, near Pretoria.
The suspicion turned out to be spot-on.
Swanepoel has searched a lot of people in his 29-year career, and the hunch told him that the black tog bag was just too heavy for someone supposedly walking to work in the morning.
At the time, on Monday morning, the colonel had been on his way back to the Kameeldrift police station after attending to a crime scene.
Swanepoel stopped his vehicle and told the man to approach him.
The man did at first, but when he got to Swanepoel’s car, he walked on past, then broke into a run and headed into the surrounding bush. The policeman gave chase.
As the suspect ran, Swanepoel saw him throw something out of the tog bag.
Swanepoel got his man, then backtracked to see what the suspect had thrown away.
To his surprise, he found a black plastic bag that had three rhino horns inside – the longest nearly half-a-metre long.
“It was just instinct,” said Swanepoel. “For the police, conducting searches is one of the best ways of combating crime.
“Criminals have to transport everything.”
The police also seized a torch and a cellphone.
The 40-year-old man was arrested for possession of rhino horn and is to appear in the Pretoria North magistrate’s court soon.