HAZYVIEW – Members of the local SAPS were called out on Saturday morning to remove a red cooler box from a half-built house on the corner of Drawwers and Korhaan streets, in which they found three long and three short fresh rhino horns.

Several contradicting versions of what led to this discovery are going around.

According to Col Grace Mabunda, recently-appointed station commander of SAPS Hazyview, the allegations made by residents that members of the police are hiding information from the public and protecting a rhino kingpin, is not true.

“The investigation has already started and will be ongoing,” she said to Lowvelder.

According to Const Duduzile Malibe, spokesman for Hazyview SAPS, information was received from an informant on Saturday morning that a vehicle with illegal arms was being driven around in Hazyview.

“This vehicle was stopped and searched by the White River K9 Unit, Crime Intelligence and the Tactical Response Unit but nothing was found. The K9 unit looked in the surrounding areas and discovered the cooler box. It was opened and the horns were found inside,” said Malibe.

No arrests were made.

Malibe did not want to give more information to Lowvelder and could not explain what had happened to the car, the driver, and passengers after the search. Nothing was mentioned about the purported illegal arms.

On Saturday afternoon the SAPS publicly asked the community to come forward with any information that could aid their investigation.

Lowvelder interviewed several residents of Hazyview who indicated that on Saturday morning a passerby allegedly noticed three men carrying a cooler box into the unfinished house on the corner of Drawwers and Korhaan streets and thought it suspicious.

Once the men left the passer-by opened the box and the fresh horns were found. The police were alerted and came to fetch the find.

An official of SAPS forensic services who was in the Kruger National Park on Monday confirmed that some of the carcasses connected to these horns might have already been found. DNA from the carcasses and horns will soon be sent to RhODIS (Rhino DNA Index System) to establish whether there is a forensic link.

• Brig Leonard Hlati, provincial spokesman for the SAPS, said to Lowvelder that the version of the events that the police gave to the public is the truth and that there is no cover-up and that “we are not protecting our own” when it was put to him that these are the allegations made in the community. He requested the public to come to the fore with any information they have on the events and report it to SAPS Hazyview.

* A total of 622 rhinos was poached in the Kruger National Park in 2016. Since the beginning of this year the tally stands at 21.These figures were placed on record in the Nelspruit Magistrate’s Court by senior state advocate, Ms Isabet Erwee, on Wednesday. It formed part of aggravating factors in support of a heavy sentence for convicted poacher Simon Ngubane. Two hundred and fifty rhinos were poached in the park 2011, 425 in 2012, 606 in 2013, 538 in 2014 and 826 in 2015. The number in 2016 dropped by 204 compared to 2015.