South African Threatened to Spread Foot-And-Mouth Disease in U.S. and U.K
Brian Patrick Roach, who faces terrorism charges in South Africa over alleged threats to release foot-and-mouth disease in the U.K. and U.S., said he was demanding $4 million to pay white farmers who suffered losses in Zimbabwe.
Roach, 64, who appeared briefly before Magistrate Renier Boshoff in a Wynberg, Johannesburg court today, was charged with “threatening acts of terrorism” and money laundering,” National Prosecuting Authority spokesman Mthunzi Mhaga told reporters outside the court.
A stooped, grey-haired man with an unkempt mustache, Roach was arrested on Feb. 11 in a sting operation while picking up containers he believed held the payment.
Roach, according to his charge sheet, started sending letters and e-mails in July to the U.K.’s Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs that threatened “to use a foot and mouth disease contaminated product to infect a large portion of the beef and swine livestock throughout the U.K.”
Investigation of the threats began “soon after they were made,” Mhaga said. The South African Police Service collaborated with the London Metropolitan Police Counter Terrorism Command and the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation.
The police have evidence Roach never had the ability to carry out his threats, Mhaga said. Roach is being held in custody at the Bramley police station in Johannesburg until he appears in court on Feb. 18 to apply for bail, which the state will oppose, Mhaga said.
Kruggerands
Roach wanted the money to be paid in Krugerrands because they were “untraceable,” according to the charge sheet. The gold coins had to be placed in 20-kilogram (44-pound) packages and “ideally disguised as something of no or low value,” and left in a locked garage, with the keys to be placed in the toilet of a designated restaurant, it said.
Roach also threatened the U.S. beef industry, according to excerpts of a letter contained in the charge sheet.
“In the event of payment not being made, the farms in the United Kingdom would be devastated and a higher amount demanded from the Government of the United States of America,” Roach allegedly wrote in a letter contained in the charge sheet.
Roach justified his threats by claiming that the money was to help farmers in neighboring Zimbabwe who allegedly suffered losses as a result of the U.K.-brokered peace deal at Lancaster House that ended Zimbabwe’s independence war and brought Robert Mugabe into office as the elected prime minister in 1980. He referred to now President Mugabe as “the tyrant from hell.”
To contact the reporter on this story: Nicky Smith in Johannesburg at nsmith38@bloomberg.net.
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Vidya Root at vroot@bloomberg.net.
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