Perlemoen (abalone) dumped as gang flees

Three women and a man dropped full bags of fresh perlemoen and fled when Johannesburg metro police spotted them with the contraband on Sunday.

"The bags - about the size of a grain bag - were so heavy that more than one person had to carry them," metro police spokesperson inspector Edna Mamonyane said.

The metro police were conducting an anti-hawking campaign in the eastern Johannesburg suburb of Cyrildene early on Sunday when they noticed four people struggling to carry the bags.

"They weighed as much as two bags of coal, and they could not run with them," Mamonyane said.

The two and half bags were handed over to the SA Police Service who "want to try and find the source of the supply".

Mamonyane said the metro police operation "to clean up where hawkers and vendors are not meant to be selling" saw many vendors and hawkers running away.

"Some managed to escape with all their goods, but others just grabbed what they could."

Nobody was arrested, but goods were confiscated, she said.

Source: www.news24.com