A special operation by the Kuils River and Malmesbury police, the Department of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, and botanists saw the arrest of a suspected plant poacher at the weekend.
Police were tipped off on Friday March 18 that a 49-year-old foreign national planned to export succulents from Cape Town, according to provincial police spokesman Captain FC Van Wyk.
The suspect was arrested at the Cape Town International Airport while in possession of two boxes of endangered succulent plants, he said.
“Subsequent to his arrest, the suspect took the members to premises in Kenilworth where they confiscated additional succulent plants aged between 50 and 100 years old.”