A provincial park agency in South Africa had their rhino horns stolen by thieves, in what may be the country's biggest such theft to date, BBC News reported.

Stealing up to 40 horns, the robbers cut through steel safes at the Mpumalanga tourism and parks agency (MPTA) in Nelspruit, police and local media said.

South Africa, home to most of the world's rhino population, have a record number of rhinos being poached and killed for their horns, which are a prized possession in east Asia.

On Sunday night, the thieves made the attack in the north-eastern city, South Africa's Lowvelder newspaper reports.

"The culprit[s] cut open two steel safes fitted with double locks," a source described as a senior MTPA official told the paper.

The thieves "knew where they were going and what they were going to do", Paul Ramaloko, a spokesman for a police anti-corruption unit known as the Hawks, was quoted by Bloomberg news agency as saying.

"This is the biggest theft of rhino horn we have ever experienced."

The agency said that no arrests had been made, according to BBC News.

As much as $95,000 (£56,500) per kilo (2.2lb), costing more than gold, can be illegally fetched by Rhino horns, Bloomberg reported.

"Large syndicates are involved in a multi-billion dollar trade worldwide, exporting the horns to both Asia and the Middle East," BBC News reported.

"South Africa's black rhino population has doubled over the past two decades from a low point of 2,480 but its numbers are still a fraction of the estimated 100,000 that existed in the early part of the 20th Century, the WWF says on its website."

Southern white rhinos, once thought to be extinct, now thrive in protected sanctuaries and are classified as Near Threatened, the website added.

1,004 rhinos were killed through poaching in South Africa in 2013, the authorities said.