This article gives us "good guys" A bad name!!!! I wish selfish people would think of the rest of us.
Thanks, Tom
>From: Ron Baalke <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Meteorite Mailing List)
>Subject: [meteorite-list] Meteorite Man Arrested Again (Gibeon Meteorite)
>Date: Tue, 13 Aug 2002 09:19:54 -0700 (PDT)
>
>
>
>http://www.namibian.com.na/2002/august/news/027A5E63D9.html
>
>'Meteorite man' arrested again
>WERNER MENGES
>The Namibian
>August 13, 2002
>
>A WINDHOEK resident who was arrested last year after a stolen
>meteorite was allegedly found in his possession is back in Police
>custody, again on charges related to the rare and sought after space
>objects.
>
>Members of the Police's Protected Resources Unit arrested Walter
>Horst (58) on Friday, after a crate he was trying to send to
>Johannesburg was opened at a courier company's premises and found to
>contain four meteorites.
>
>Namibian meteorites are protected by law, and may not be removed
>from where they are found or taken out of the country without a
>permit.
>
>A lucrative trade appears to be flourishing in these rare objects
>which rained out of space - there are numerous web sites which offer
>Namibian meteorites for sale.
>
>Dr Gabi Schneider, Director of the Geological Survey and Vice
>Chairperson of the Monuments Council of Namibia, said yesterday that
>while the illegal export and trade in Namibia's meteorites had
>become a major problem in the past 10 years, the extent of the
>damage to Namibia's natural heritage remained difficult to assess.
>
>However, a survey of the numerous web sites on the internet where
>Namibian meteorites are offered for sale indicates that a large
>number have already been taken out of the country, she said.
>
>Namibia is home to the world's largest meteorite - at Hoba near
>Grootfontein, and is also the site of the largest meteorite shower,
>which came down in the Gibeon area thousands of years ago.
>
>Schneider said it appears from the thefts of meteorites in recent
>years that meteorite smugglers have been adapting their tactics,
>possibly because the objects are no longer so easily found in the
>areas where they landed.
>
>Two meteorites were stolen from the Geological Survey's museum in
>Windhoek at the end of last year, another vanished from there a year
>earlier, one was stolen from the Post Street Mall meteorite display
>in Windhoek last year, and before that one was stolen from the
>Monuments Council.
>
>The communities in whose home areas the meteorites are found are the
>major losers in the illegal trade, said Schneider.
>
>While foreign meteorite dealers ask - and readily receive -
>astronomical prices for Namibian meteorites, most of which come from
>the Gibeon area, communities for the most part earn a pittance from
>selling the meteorites to dealers and their middlemen, she said.
>
>On the sites offering Gibeon meteorites, the prices vary from US$1
>per gram for small objects, to some US$1 400 (N$14 500) for a
>seven-and-a-half kilogram object.
>
>Another web site advertises a Gibeon meteorite of some 2,5 kg for
>sale for US$975 (about N$10 000), while yet another states that
>Gibeon meteorites, weighing some 103 kg and 105 kg, had been sold
>for US$50 000 and US$75 000 respectively.
>
>The meteorites which Horst allegedly tried to send out of the
>country weighed 181 kg.
>
>Horst had been free on N$10 000 bail on two other charges - one of
>illegally possessing a rhino horn, and one of receiving stolen goods
>in the form of another meteorite weighing some 296 kg - when he was
>arrested last week.
>
>He was held on those charges in September last year, after the
>meteorite stolen from a display in Post Street Mall in the capital
>allegedly found its way into his hands.
>
>Horst appeared before Magistrate Sarel Jacobs in the Windhoek
>Magistrate's Court yesterday on a charge of the illegal removal and
>export of meteorites.
>
>He was told that he is to remain in custody. His defence lawyer,
>Kobus Potgieter, told the court that a formal bail application will
>be brought on Thursday.
>
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