The appellant was found to have been complicit in the transaction where a fake rhino horn was sold in a police trap for R350 000. He was sentenced to six years’ imprisonment. The appellant unsuccessfully appealed to the Free State High Court against his conviction and sentence. The court a quo, however, granted him leave to appeal to this Court against both. The court needed to determine whether the proven facts as found by the trial court did not establish the element of intent to defraud, and in particular the aspect of intent to deceive. The court applied the two principal aspects of the intent to defraud, namely; intention to deceive and intention to induce a person to alter or abstain from altering his or her legal position. The majority decision was to dismiss the appeal. The appellant found himself on the horns of a dilemma at his criminal trial: saying that he honestly believed the imitation was real could potentially have exposed him to conviction of attempt on the alternative statutory charge whilst saying that he did not hold such belief, would have exposed him to a conviction of fraud. Dissenting Judge Willis did not agree that the magistrate and the high court hearing the first appeal correctly found that the appellant was guilty of fraud but should have found the appellant guilty of an attempt to contravene s 14 (2) of the Nature Conservation Ordinance 8 of 1969 and made an appropriate adjustment to sentence.