General Fannie Masemola update on countrywide policing operations

Media briefing notes for the National Commissioner of the South African Police Service: General Fannie Masemola (SOEG); update on countrywide policing operations - 12 September 2024

We have brought our weekly high density operations to the heartbeat of the country this morning as part of our broader strategy to ensure we continuously assert the authority of the state throughout the country. With September being public service month, we are intensifying our compliance inspections at all our police stations and service points in a bid to ensure that we continuously improve our service offering to our communities.

Our responsibility as a police service is to keep all people living in South Africa safe and as the South African Police Service we will continue to act without fear, favour and prejudice to realise this vision. In so doing, we continuously place our communities needs at the centre of our actions.

Ladies and gentlemen, the SAPS remains at the coalface of the criminal justice system and it is upon our members to ensure that the work that they do continues to inspire confidence in the system.

Our ongoing operations are yielding the desired results. We are continuously implementing an all hands on deck approach- we are indeed leave no one behind. It is a joint effort working closely with other law enforcement agencies, other government departments, the business sector, our community police forum structures and private security.

At the heart of it all - lies our communities. Through community participation and through the tip-offs that we continue to receive,
criminals are feeling the heat. There is no longer much room and space for criminals in all provinces including KZN, Gauteng, Western Cape and Eastern Cape to operate - because that space has been squeezed!

Ongoing takedowns and the arrests of wanted suspects is our operatives sending a firm and stern warning to all criminals, their friends and accomplices - that police are hitting the ground running - they are on high alert and our men and women in blue will continue to sniff out criminals from every corner of this country.

We do believe that we are registering progress in destabilizing the work of organised crime syndicates as well as ruthless criminals in all forms and shape.

Since our last briefing four weeks ago, 85 000 more suspects have been arrested for various crimes ranging from murder to rape, kidnapping and extortion. This brings the total number of suspects arrested since the launch of Operation Shanela to 850 375 (eight hundred and fifty thousand three hundred and seventy-five).

During this period, 824 illegal and unlicensed firearms with more than 17 282 rounds of ammunition seized.

Extortion
Ladies and gentlemen, the SAPS is working hard to bring an end to extortion related crimes but, we are going to need the cooperation of our communities to report the crime and name and shame the perpetrators. We have developed an Extortion Action Plan and thus far, we are pleased with the manner in which this plan is being implemented throughout the country. As management, we are particularly encouraged with how our police officers are addressing the crime of extortion across all provinces that have been identified as hotspots. We are following up on tip-offs and information shared through our hotlines and crime stop number. We are fetching each of these extortionists, one by one!

Just in these past two weeks, 14 extortionists were shot and killed during confrontation with police in various provinces. The most brazen of these alleged extortionists were in the Eastern Cape Province in the town of Mthatha were three followed and tailed our National Intervention Unit (NIU) members to their base. Our members had been conducting stop and searches in Mthatha during tracing operations and had earlier confiscated firearms from these alleged extortionists. These extortionists indeed got what they were looking for, they shot at our police officers - who were ready to defend and assert the authority of the state. Three of these extortionists are being buried this weekend. Six others were also shot and killed in confrontation with Kwazulu-Natal.

In Gauteng, an Emfuleni local municipality employee and a branch party leader have been arrested. The pair and others are accused of extorting money from a contractor who has been installing fibre infrastructure network in Sharpville in the Vaal area.

Still in Gauteng, three suspects were arrested in the Johannesburg CBD in a joint operation between Gauteng organised crime and JMPD earlier this week. The three are accused of causing work to stop at a construction site because they are demanding money from the contractors.

In Cape Town, one extortionist, a Zimbabwean foreign national was arrested for the murder of a 4-year-old girl in Joe Slovo informal settlement in Milnerton. The little girl was shot at the time when her killer and his friends were demanding protection fee money from a local spaza shop owner. The little girl was unfortunately hit by a stray bullet and died from a gunshot wound.

With Gauteng, Eastern Cape, KwaZulu-Natal and Western Cape having been identified as provinces that have the most reported cases, we are adding capacity and pumping resources to the Economic Infrastructure Task Teams (EITT) to prevent, combat and investigate incidents of extortion and other crimes.

Criminal groupings involved in some of these cases have been identified and our intelligence and detectives are on the ground, piecing together information to ensure perpetrators are brought to book.

The crime of extortion requires a specialised investigative capacity and that is why we have deployed specialist teams led by the DPCI, crime intelligence and organised crime units to lead these investigations.

From 01 April 2023 to 31 August 2024, 319 cases have been reported at our police stations. A breakdown is as follows:
Western Cape registered the highest cases with 119, followed by Eastern Cape with 82 and Kwazulu-Natal with 63 and Gauteng with 31 cases.
The number of arrests that are linked to these cases are 151.
A breakdown per province is as follows:
69 arrests were made in the Western Cape, 24 were made in the Eastern Cape, 23 were made in Gauteng and 20 arrests were registered in KwaZulu-Natal.

It is however of grave concern that seven police officers and a civilian were arrested by the DPCI for their involvement in extortion related crimes in Durban, in Kwazulu-Natal. They are accused of soliciting about R100 000 from a business owner after confiscating cigarettes from his business premises and demanding that he pay them to make the case disappear.

The seven have already appeared in court on a charge of extortion, corruption and defeating the administration of justice. It is however disappointing but at the same time pleasing to have our own arrested.

This indeed provides the organisation with the opportunity to continuously rid itself of criminal elements.

Ladies and gentlemen. We have in the last five years, dismissed 2118 police officers. This is a large number, which demonstrates our commitment to deal with rotten elements. We will therefore continue to act decisively against our own members who do not honour their oath of office.

Serious and violent crime
Our focus and efforts are being intensified to put an end to serious and violent crime. Just this past week alone, several criminals were shot and killed following confrontation with police in various provinces. I repeat, police have a mandate to protect communities and arrest those who are heavily armed and dangerous criminals, they will not hesitate to use force proportional to the threat.

In Gauteng in the past week, eight criminals were shot and killed during DPCI led operations. Six of them were Cash-in-transit robbers who had just robbed a cash van of an undisclosed amount of money in Germiston.

An AK47 and four pistols were found in their possession.

In Brackendowns in the South of Johannesburg, two other criminals were also shot and killed following a confrontation with the hawks. The pair were being linked to aggravated robberies in and around Gauteng. In Ekurhuleni, another criminal was also shot and killed in a DPCI led operation while police were following up on information of a person that was in possession of an unlicensed firearm.

In KwaZulu Natal, three suspects were also fatally wounded during a confrontation with police in the last twenty-four hours. The suspects were wanted for their involvement in serious and violent crimes in and around the province.

Drugs
We continue to rid our streets of drugs as they destroy families, especially young people who are our future leaders. And this is why we continue to intensify our operations to detect and remove these drugs off our streets. In Port Alfred in the Eastern Cape, R30 million worth of cannabis and cannabis related products were seized during a DPCI led operation this week. Five suspects including two South Africans and three foreign nationals have been arrested. In the past month, a drug lab worth R80 million was shutdown in Douglasdale, Johannesburg. In the same operation, police seized R10 million worth of mandrax tablets. Two foreign
nationals were arrested and have already appeared in court.

GBVF
A Mozambican national has appeared before the Carletonville Magistrate on a charge of kidnapping and murder of 26-year-old Nomsa Jass. Jass was kidnapped outside her workplace in Potchefstroom North West. Her decomposed body was found in Carletonville and her vehicle was recovered at the Daveyton Mall in Springs.

Between April 2024 and June 2024, 745 persons were convicted for GBVF related crimes through the work of our Family Violence, Child Protection and Sexual Investigations (FCS) unit. A breakdown is as follows:
129 GBVF perpetrators were convicted to life in prison;
89 were sentenced to 20 years and above imprisonment sentence;
205 were sentenced to 10 - 19 year's imprisonment; and
322 were sentenced to 1- 9 year's imprisonment.

We continue to work towards capacitating our detectives to ensure that they remove perpetrators of crime from our streets. We are training more detectives and have recently reenlisted 201 detectives back to the service.

It is however encouraging that with the limited capacity and constraints: From 01 April 2024 to 31 August 2024 (five-month period) - 5 711 persons were convicted to various crime from murder to rape. The breakdown is as follows:
531 Life sentences were handed down to 347 accused for murder, rape, house and business robberies, car hijackings and other robberies with firearms.
31 accused were convicted to 40 years and more imprisonment for the same crimes.
60 accused were convicted to 30 -39 years' imprisonment for the same crimes.
430 accused were sentenced to 20 -29 years' imprisonment for the same crimes.
1 929 accused were sentenced to 10-19 years imprisonment for the same crimes.
2 914 accused were sentenced to 5 - 9 years imprisonment for the same crimes.

September is police safety month and we are continuously enhancing our safety strategy to ensure the safety and security of our members on and off duty. A week ago we remembered 39 police officers who lost their lives at the hands of criminals. We can only end police killings, if communities provide information on criminals and their activities.

To our communities, your support and appreciation for our hardworking law enforcement officers does not go unnoticed. The tip-offs that we receive from you are proving to be effective - in fact the majority of successes that we do achieve on a daily basis is as a result of your cooperation. Let's continue on that note, to work together to fight crime - as I said earlier, criminals are in minority, we can and we will bring all these extortionists, kidnappers and hardened criminals to book…

Re a leboga! Le kamosa
I thank you

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