Preacher and son jailed 20 years after their arrest for abalone poaching

12 December 2019 - 13:20 By Dave Chambers
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Five Gansbaai men will finally go to jail for between three and six years for their part in an abalone-poaching racket. They were convicted in 2010 and have been on bail since then, pending their appeal.
Five Gansbaai men will finally go to jail for between three and six years for their part in an abalone-poaching racket. They were convicted in 2010 and have been on bail since then, pending their appeal.
Image: Esa Alexander

A preacher, his son and three other men who were part of one of the Western Cape’s biggest abalone poaching syndicates finally have to go to prison, nearly 20 years after being caught.

The men, from Gansbaai, failed this week in their Cape Town high court appeals against sentences ranging from three years to six years.

They were convicted of racketeering in 2010 under the Prevention of Organised Crime Act (Poca) and have been on bail since then, pending the appeal.

Now, Church of Christ preacher Christo Groenewald, 59, his son Christo Groenewald, 37, Hendrik Kriel, Willem Kriel and Bernard Geldenhuys must begin their sentences.

Each of them was given an additional two years’ imprisonment, suspended on condition that they are not convicted under Poca or the Marine Living Resources Act.

Elizette Marx was the 'godmother' of an abalone-poaching syndicate in Gansbaai nearly 20 years ago.
Elizette Marx was the 'godmother' of an abalone-poaching syndicate in Gansbaai nearly 20 years ago.
Image: Arena Holdings archive

The men worked for an all-woman abalone racketeering enterprise headed by “godmother” Elizette Marx, now 50, who entered into a plea and sentencing agreement with the state and gave evidence against them at their trial.

Groenewald snr arranged dives, kept guard and acted as a go-between. Marx paid him for the abalone — one delivery totalled 600kg — and he “actively promoted the illegal activities” of her racketeering enterprise, according to the appeal judgment. He was jailed for three years.

His son and Geldenhuys dived for abalone. They were each jailed for four years.

The Kriels started out as divers, and once they had their own boats they took up to 17 divers out, each of whom harvested up to 60kg of abalone per dive. They were each jailed for six years.

Marx was first arrested in November 2002 during a dawn raid by the Scorpions which netted 30 people in Gansbaai. The following year, she fell into a police trap when she planned to raid a Worcester warehouse full of abalone.

She hoped to get her own back on Johannesburg-based Chinese buyer Jian Bin Liu, who had failed to pay her for an earlier R500,000 consignment of poached abalone because it had been seized by police.

But one of the men involved in the Worcester raid was an undercover Scorpions officer, and Marx later pleaded guilty to a charge of conspiracy to commit robbery and a second charge under the Marine Living Resources Act of transporting abalone without a permit. She was sentenced to a total of three years’ imprisonment.

The Gansbaai house Elizette Marx owned when she was in charge of a massive abalone-poaching syndicate.
The Gansbaai house Elizette Marx owned when she was in charge of a massive abalone-poaching syndicate.
Image: Ambrose Peters

In February 2003, Marx forfeited assets totalling about R13m to the state. Since her arrest, dozens of men involved in her syndicate — suspected to have links countrywide as well as in the Far East — have been convicted and jailed.

But only after the 2002 arrests did it emerge that they were working for a syndicate controlled by women — Marx and her lieutenants Janelle Theart, Merinda Potgieter, Sharon Swanepoel and Ronelle Ferreira.


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