At the launch of Operation Duty Calls, the SAPS's Festive Season Operation at Wembezi in KwaZulu-Natal on 23 October 2014, the Minister of Police and the National Commissioner of Police made a commitment to ensure that the people in South Africa are and feel safe.

To this end, a team of experienced detectives from the SAPS Head Office in Pretoria have studied several hundred crime dockets with the KwaZulu-Natal detectives to determine the following:

- Possible suspects who have been identified, but not yet arrested

- Suspects who have been arrested and charged, but the dockets are not yet ready for trial

- Suspects who were linked to crime scenes, but have not yet been arrested

- Suspects whose details have been circulated as wanted, but have not yet been traced and arrested.

The dockets that came under the microscope this week, included serious cases such as murder, attempted murder, car hijacking, truck hijacking, cash-in-transit heists, bank robbery, house robbery, business robbery, common robbery, rape, sexual assault, common assault, theft of motor vehicle, theft (other), theft of live stock, burglary (residence), burglary (business), shoplifting, arson, malicious damage to property and fraud.

Today we can announce that the intensive work done since Monday this week, has yielded phenomenal successes. I am proud to say that the cluster tracking teams together with detectives throughout the province have worked around the clock this week and arrested over 830 suspects in connection with the crime categories I have just mentioned.

 

Drugs

It is that time of year when one can unfortunately also expect the abuse of drugs and alcohol to increase, which ultimately contributes to other serious crime such as murder, assault and domestic violence. 

 

We are indeed keeping a firm watch in this area and we continue to achieve significant successes with arresting those involved in the drug underworld. I am sure by now that you are aware that two businessmen and three others that have been arrested for drug trafficking by a dedicated task team under the direct supervision of Lieutenant General Vinesh Moonoo.

 

Two days ago, a Durban businessman, Gregory Craig Ayres (45 years of age) and a Bulgarian national with a SA passport, Mr Valeri Lazanov Nikolov (42 years of age), were arrested at the Middelburg Plaza on the N4 with several millions of Rands worth of Ecstasy tablets in their possession.  These tablets were destined for the Durban market.

 

These arrests prompted the arrest of Gregory's business partner, Gareth George John Brissett, (40 years of age) together with Sakhile Dlamini (28 years of age), John Mapumalo (32 years of age) in Koningkramer Street in Westville. The task team also recovered precursor chemicals for the manufacture of illicit narcotics, which could also potentially run into several millions of rands.

 

Ayres and Nikolov have appeared in the Middelburg Magistrate's Court yesterday, 6 November 2014 on charges of dealing in drugs and they have been remanded in custody until 12 November 2014 to allow for further investigations.

 

In the meantime, Brissett, Dlamini and Mapumalo have appeared in the Pinetown Magistrate's Court today and they have been remanded in custody until 13 November 2014, also for further investigations to be conducted.

 

These operations are not the first and they certainly will not be the last. Further announcements of this nature will be made regularly as we progress into the festive season.

In conclusion, I would like to reiterate our commitment to continue focussing our efforts on 6 key pillars:-

 

-        aggravated/armed robberies (trio crimes), 

-        Firearms, liquor and second-hand Goods as well as safety at sports and recreational events act enforcement,

-        Crimes against women, children as well as persons with disabilities, 

-        wanted suspects, 

-        Road safety enforcement (traffic management)

-        and border security.

 

We know that someone, somewhere, somehow knows something about a crime that is about to be committed and we rely on those people to come forward with information.

I would also like to assure of the people of KwaZulu-Natal that vacation leave for police officials over this period is restricted to ensure that we have sufficient police members ready to deal with any and all eventualities that may occur over this period.

 

The time is now, we need to put an end to crime and together we can achieve this goal!

 

I thank you.

 

-End-

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