A bloody battle over livestock in the hills of the Eastern Cape has turned so violent that established farmers are starting to surrender, sell up and migrate. Marginal farmers living in villages and some farmers have gone into resistance mode and are fighting back with all their might.
Stock thieves, operating in the unique style of a newly rich provincial rural mafia with urban connections, are accused of wholesale rustling.
Their ravaging is starting to reach a crescendo where those who dare to resist are put to death in blazing vehicles or are mown down in automatic assault weapon fire. The war has become a national crisis, the Daily Dispatch team learnt during a four-month intensive investigation.
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BEHIND THE NEWS | The deadly Eastern Cape underworld web of stock theft
Stock theft is real and deadly. Thousands of Eastern Cape people are victims. Syndicates make millions from it. In May ...
Cops and prosecutors part of deadly stock theft web, says lone magistrate
Corrupt state officials, from cops to prosecutors, are deeply involved in the stock theft racket, and that's why ...
Village sets up dynamic forum to fight stock theft
Tired of being victims of stock theft where lives are lost and prized cattle and sheep are sold cheaply by thieves, ...
EXCLUSIVE | Eastern Cape widows mourn after fiery horror of mob rage ...
Two Eastern Cape women are among the growing list of widows being spawned by the rising wave of cattle grabbing ...
THE KINGPINS: Woman stock theft boss is feared and smart, say cops
Feared operator Ntandokazi Xoliswa Mbombo, 41, is accused of masterminding a multimillion-rand stock theft ...
THE KINGPINS: Lwazi Tshangela has stolen hundreds of cattle, say cops
Police say 427 cattle have been swiped by rustling kingpin Lwazi Tshangela, 37. This is the substance of four ...
THE KINGPINS: Elvis Duda, the paramedic who favours classy livestock
Accident victims may have been treated by notorious stock theft boss, paramedic Elvis Duda, who stands accused of ...
THE KINGPINS: Akhona Xhoma, the untouchable
Widely believed to be a kingpin in of one of the syndicates operating in the Eastern Cape, Akhona Xhoma is accused of ...
Eastern Cape farmers spend millions on hi-tech spy cameras and armed guards
Commercial farmers in the Cedarville farming area are spending millions on technology to protect what is left of ...
Bullets, knives and fire — how people have fallen in stock-theft war
MTHATHA, BHAZIYA, JANUARY 3, 2021: Two men were burnt alive after they were thrown inside their vehicle that was ...
Ngcobo mayor says stock theft is his main concern
This is Ngcobo today, epicentre of a cattle war in which scores have died or been maimed. As he runs through the list, ...
Criminal syndicates force grief-stricken EC farmers off the land
A sense of foreboding pervades the province's close-knit rural community as farmers in cattle rustling hotspots ...
Grannies forced to stand by as their tiny herds are taken
For the widows, grandmothers and single moms of Qumbu there is no difference between a bank robber and sheep ...
Cattle rustler earns R30,000 a month to ‘feed’ four kids
For a jobless father of four who spoke to the Dispatch, cattle thievery is a lucrative crime. The man, in his 30s, ...
Holomisa calls for new police unit and cross-border initiative to fight ...
UDM president Bantu Holomisa says more people are starting to be killed in an escalating wave of cross-border stock ...
'We have enough resources to do the job, say police'
In five years, more than 34,169 cases of stock theft were reported in the Eastern Cape and 3,011 suspects were ...
MORE DispatchLIVE STOCK THEFT STORIES:
Two arrested for defrauding a farmer of nearly R5m worth of sheep
Two men were arrested after they were found in possession of sheep valued at R4.9m that they fraudulently obtained from ...
Ngcobo stock thief sentenced to eight years in jail
An Eastern Cape man was last week sentenced to an effective eight years in jail for stocktheft in the Ngcobo area
R260m lost as stock theft cripples Eastern Cape farmers
Eastern Cape farmers have lost at least R260-million due to stock theft and poaching in recent months, and the amount ...
Police confirm two in ‘mob justice’ video were killed
Eastern Cape police have confirmed that two men who appear in a 30-second video clip bound in chains and marched ...
Oscar puts weight behind anti-stock theft forum
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Horror family slaying in Tsolo stock theft hotbed village
The brutal slaying of four family members in a remote rural village in Tsolo on the weekend has left the rest of the ...
Brothers accused of deadly arson attack say they had no reason to kill ...
Two brothers accused of a deadly gun and arson attack on relatives' home while the occupants were sleeping have told ...
Four Eastern Cape widows living in terror after husbands gunned down
Four Eastern Cape widows whose husbands were brutally murdered are living in fear of more attacks. Ngcobo traditional ...
Mob kills two accused of stock theft
Two men, who were accused of stock theft, were killed by community members in Tsolo in the Eastern Cape on Monday
Alert cop flags down stolen cattle
Mqanduli policeman Mnoneleli Fikizolo has come in for high praise after foiling the well-planned theft of nine cattle ...
Eastern Cape farm attack and stock theft numbers laid bare
Farm attacks have tripled in four years in the Eastern Cape, and as Covid-19 took hold this year, stock thieves ...
Woman stock theft accused a ‘career first’ for senior cop
A senior police officer with more than 40 years experience says a woman being accused of masterminding a ...
Stock theft hits KWT farmers hard
Rampant stock theft in villages around King William’s Town is costing subsistence farmers thousands of rands in ...
KWT farmers’ animals decimated by theft syndicates
King William’s Town farms have become the latest target of stock thieves, who are selling stolen animals to ...
EC police arrest suspected stock thieves who burnt down victims homes
Ten alleged stock thieves were arrested in Elliot near Qumbu and Maclear over the weekend. Transport MEC Weziwe ...
Murderous vendetta turns Ngcobo village to place of terror
A tiny village near Ngcobo has become a killing field, with an average of one person a month dying in a hail of ...
Police arrest 13 after four Qumbu youths slain
Just hours after a Qumbu herdsman discovered the bullet-riddled bodies of four young men in an open field, police ...