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Gauteng Police implicated in selling guns to Cape gangsters – huge breakthrough welcomed, MEC Dan Plato

It is with great concern that I learned of and welcome this morning’s media report that a Gauteng South African Police Service (SAPS) officer has been arrested and implicated in the illegal sale of firearms to gangsters in the Western Cape.

For months communities have told me, the police and anyone that will listen, that gangsters are using police firearms and I have escalated these reports to the highest police offices in the country in terms of my oversight role over the SAPS in the Western Cape.

Today’s news confirms that our communities know what is going on around them and the police should value their information. I thank those that have come forward with this information and encourage anyone with similar information to report it to my office or to the SAPS directly.

A report in The Star newspaper this morning has claimed that Western Cape detectives found “that some of the weapons they confiscated from gangsters had their serial numbers erased – but ballistic tests revealed the weapons had actually been in the Gauteng Firearms and Liquor Control Unit.” An official police system, however, showed that the firearms had been destroyed. The Star report reveals that a “nationwide investigation into firearm links between the police and gangsters then followed.”

I welcome the National police spokesman Lieutenant-General Solomon Makgale’s comments (reported in The Star), that “It will go a long way into resolving many gang violence-related cases in the Western Cape as well as theft of firearms and ammunition from SAPS depots.” I trust that more such incidents will now be identified and immediately stopped.

It has also been revealed that fraudulent firearm licenses have been issued to gang leaders in the Western Cape. These licenses must immediately be cancelled and the holders of these licenses arrested.

I am, however, concerned that the implicated gun collector involved in the alleged buying and selling of these firearms and the issuing of the fraudulent licenses has succeeded in preventing the police from further searching his premises. I trust that this will be immediately addressed and any additional illegal firearms immediately confiscated.

Any police officer found breaking the law will be arrested and I trust that the Western Cape Police Commissioner, Lieutenant General Arno Lamoer will continue his policy of zero tolerance with regards to police corruption and criminality.

This news marks a huge blow against the gangster killers destroying our communities and I thank The Star for exposing this grave injustice to the public.

Issued by Western Cape Community Safety