US is pursuing the man who destroyed SA’s rock lobster population
It took only 14 years for Cape Town businessman Arnold Bengis to decimate one of SA’s most treasured marine species. Now he is being made to pay by a US court‚ which has ordered the 81-year-old to cough up $37m (about R483m) for pillaging thousands of tonnes of rock lobster. The restitution amount replaces a $21m payment Bengis agreed to make to SA in 2004. Because he paid only $1.25m and placed the rest "out of reach of the US"‚ Manhattan District Court Judge Lewis Kaplan also sentenced him on Wednesday to more than four years’ imprisonment. Kaplan ordered an immediate arrest warrant for Bengis‚ now living in Israel‚ and state-attorney Kiersten Fletcher told the court that US authorities would try to extradite him. The judge said: "There is value to Mr Bengis understanding that … there may be a knock at the door and a pair of handcuffs in his future." The Department of Agriculture‚ Forestry and Fisheries wanted $100m in restitution for the US citizen’s activities but it welcomed Ka...
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