TL;DR: Antarctica might seem like the last place on Earth where a crime could be committed. But when you drop a small group of humans into an isolated, freezing, sunless landscape for months at a time, strange things happen. Tempers flare. Sanity frays. Inevitably, chess gets banned.
Antarctica has no government, no currency, and no cities… but it does have criminals. How is that possible when no-one lives there? Well, at any given time, the coldest continent is home to a rotating crew of scientists, engineers, and support staff from all over the world who brave the elements in the name of research and data collection. There are about 66 scientific stations scattered across the ice, with roughly 37 of them occupied year-round.
There’s barely anything to steal, since those who visit aren’t able to bring much in the way of personal effects, and money’s pretty useless in a place with no banks or shops. That said, isolation and extreme boredom do strange things to people. Toss in some poorly timed vodka and months of not being able to light a braai, and you’ve got yourself the makings of a psychological pressure cooker.
Under the 1959 Antarctic Treaty, if you do commit a crime there, you’re handed back to your home country for punishment. That means that if you’re South African and find yourself in Antarctica, you’re still under South African law, specifically under the jurisdiction of the Cape Town Magistrate’s Court.
On the 27th of February this year, an email sent from South Africa’s SANAE IV base in Antarctica claimed that a researcher had allegedly attacked one colleague, sexually assaulted another, and plotted to kill a third. Not exactly the scientific breakthrough they were hoping for. The team, which was meant to be stationed on the ice until December (when the next supply ship was due) barricaded their violent crewmember in a room and asked to be rescued ASAP, if not sooner.
The problem with an Antarctic rescue is that it takes so long to get there. By mid-March, Environment Minister Dion George gave a public update stating that the alleged perpetrator was cooperating with psychological evaluations, and officials had decided not to evacuate the 9-person team. The rescue was shelved because the weather was deemed to be too dicey, and flying a rescue mission into an Antarctic storm isn’t as simple as sending an UberXL. Government sources insisted the base was “calm and under control” - a phrase that always sounds more reassuring in theory than in practice.
The case remains one of the most serious criminal allegations involving South African citizens in Antarctica to date, but it seems quite mild compared to some of the other crimes that have taken place on the continent. In 1959, there was a fight between Soviet scientists that ended in one being attacked with an ice axe. Apparently, the attacker was peeved over losing a chess game. Chess was promptly banned at all Soviet and Russian research stations. Then in 2018, there was a stabbing at another Russian base that was allegedly triggered by the victim spoiling the endings of the books the attacker was reading. Then there are your garden variety instances of illegal drug use, indecent exposure, wildlife harassment, and even joyriding through environmentally sensitive zones on motorbikes. Nothing screams “scientific integrity” quite like doing donuts in a penguin habitat.
Turns out, even at the edge of the Earth, where there’s no traffic, no Tinder, and no tariffs (yet), humans still find a way to upset each other. Maybe next time we send people down there, we should pack fewer ice axes and more therapy dogs.
