Exclusive translation: A court in the Western Cape province of South Africa fined three Saudi nationals of two million rand (400,000 Saudi riyals) for illegal collection and money laundering.
According to TimesLIVE, the three citizens admitted they planned to harvest the plants and export them to a Saudi farm. They also claimed that their intention to visit Mzansi was to collect plants.
The website claimed that the three had arrived at Cape Town International Airport on 7 October and had rented a car. They also booked a guesthouse near where the plants they wanted were located and hired four local people to help them get the plants.
A spokesman for the National Prosecuting Authority, Eric Ntabazallila, said they spent days acquiring the plants and were arrested at the Beauvader / Peterfontein intersection with more than 1.63 million objects. According to Die Son.
The charges against the four local residents were dropped because Saudi citizens admitted that the bags containing the plants belonged to them and not to the locals.
Saudi citizens were instructed to pay a 2 million rand fine.
The court warned the three citizens of seven years’ imprisonment if the same offense was repeated in the next five years.
