Triads into perlemoen, Mandrax

2003-05-22 12:17

Johannesburg - The national director for public prosecutions said on Tuesday that Chinese Triads pillaging the country's perlemoen (abalone) resources were also responsible for flooding the local drug market with Mandrax.

"They exchange the Mandrax for abalone which is then exported to Taiwan and China where it is considered an aphrodisiac," said Bulelani Ngcuka during a Business Against Crime (BAC) breakfast in Johannesburg.

Ngcuka said the recent arrest of three top Triad members had dealt a blow to the organisation, with "significant" assets also seized from gangs operating along the Cape coast.

He said while crime levels remained unacceptably high, progress was being made.

"The backlog of cases waiting to be tried has declined from more than 200 000 last year to about 130 000 at present."

Calculated at R60 a prisoner per day for time spent in jail, this represented a significant saving to government.

"It has also gone a long way towards restoring confidence in the criminal justice system," he told the BAC trustees.

Ngcuka said the Asset Forfeiture Unit had played an important role in dealing with organised crime.

"Five years ago when we took over a splintered and dysfunctional system, we looked at many examples, including the United States, and found that people such as Al Capone could only be brought to book through financial means - in his case through income tax evasion legislation."

The Scorpions had also played their part in combating serious crime.

FBI and Scotland Yard

"By ensuring that our people received the best training from experts at the FBI and Scotland Yard, we are more than equal to the task of addressing increasingly sophisticated criminals," he said.

Widespread corruption in the Eastern Cape had been dealt a "devastating" blow as a result of the intervention by the Scorpions.

"Government officials who were responsible for ripping off medicine from state hospitals and siphoning off funds from schools have been brought to book," he said.

Ngcuka said violent crime, particularly murder, had declined significantly, but stressed the need for greater co-operation.

"We need organisations like Business Against Crime and the business community in general to assist us through the public private partnership to make the system work better in order to achieve the desired results," he said.

Meanwhile, Ngcuka announced that two new Specialised Commercial Crimes Courts would be opened in Durban and Port Elizabeth, while issues such as insider trading and the illegal manipulation of share prices would receive closer scrutiny.

- SAPA