By MIKE LOEWE
Pickings were slim for the trilateral cross-border anti-crime force which came into the Karoo and coastal areas last week.This is compared to impressive anti-crime gains made by the combined provincial and national government force in the Maluti and southern Drakensburg mountains between August and May.
Last Monday and Tuesday’s operation in the Humansdorp, Graaff-Reinet, Cradock and Aliwal North police clusters came up with three illegal guns, and 38 arrests, mostly for tiny amounts of hard drugs.
But on June 8 provincial police commissioner Lieutenant-General Celiwe Binta released figures from operations in the mountains which, when tallied, showed that 234 livestock roughly valued at a million rand were recovered, as was a luxury SUV and a police assault R5 rifle.
Eastern Cape police spokesman Lieutenant Khaya Tonjeni said yesterday that the Karoo-to-coast operation netted R24 240 in traffic fines, with officers seizing 600 grams of dagga, a smidgeon of Tik worth R120, two Mandrax tables (R310) and “23 illegally fished snoek worth R1 840”.
Plenty of resources from the Eastern and Western Cape provinces, and KwaZulu-Natal were thrown into the operation, including 10 different SAPS units being highway patrol, K9, Tactical Response Team, rural safety, stocktheft, crime intelligence, anti-vehicle theft, border police, detectives and legal services.
Twenty roadblocks were set up in the four clusters with the force searching 1 385 people and 1 737 vehicles.
Surprisingly, 48 liquor outlets were visited but “no arrests were effected or outlets closed”, according to Tonjeni.
The force also visited 16 second-hand goods dealers to check if they were compliant in terms of the Second-hand Goods Act but they were all clean, as were 53 stock farms checked to see if they complied with branding and stock-keeping legislation.
Yet, a rough tally of Binta’s mountain figures released on June 8 showed that between August last year and June, the combined taskforce made 22 arrests, some of which led to a total of 41 years of jail time. They recovered 196 sheep (valued at R196 000), 29 cattle (R746 000) five horses (R15 000) , four goats, made four dagga busts and recovered an R5 assault rifle and two rifles and and luxury SUV and trailer. —
Anti-crime force fail to crack it -- so far
Pickings were slim for the trilateral cross-border anti-crime force which came into the Karoo and coastal areas last week.This is compared to impressive anti-crime gains made by the combined provincial and national government force in the Maluti and southern Drakensburg mountains between August and May.
Last Monday and Tuesday’s operation in the Humansdorp, Graaff-Reinet, Cradock and Aliwal North police clusters came up with three illegal guns, and 38 arrests, mostly for tiny amounts of hard drugs.
But on June 8 provincial police commissioner Lieutenant-General Celiwe Binta released figures from operations in the mountains which, when tallied, showed that 234 livestock roughly valued at a million rand were recovered, as was a luxury SUV and a police assault R5 rifle.
Eastern Cape police spokesman Lieutenant Khaya Tonjeni said yesterday that the Karoo-to-coast operation netted R24 240 in traffic fines, with officers seizing 600 grams of dagga, a smidgeon of Tik worth R120, two Mandrax tables (R310) and “23 illegally fished snoek worth R1 840”.
Plenty of resources from the Eastern and Western Cape provinces, and KwaZulu-Natal were thrown into the operation, including 10 different SAPS units being highway patrol, K9, Tactical Response Team, rural safety, stocktheft, crime intelligence, anti-vehicle theft, border police, detectives and legal services.
Twenty roadblocks were set up in the four clusters with the force searching 1 385 people and 1 737 vehicles.
Surprisingly, 48 liquor outlets were visited but “no arrests were effected or outlets closed”, according to Tonjeni.
The force also visited 16 second-hand goods dealers to check if they were compliant in terms of the Second-hand Goods Act but they were all clean, as were 53 stock farms checked to see if they complied with branding and stock-keeping legislation.
Yet, a rough tally of Binta’s mountain figures released on June 8 showed that between August last year and June, the combined taskforce made 22 arrests, some of which led to a total of 41 years of jail time. They recovered 196 sheep (valued at R196 000), 29 cattle (R746 000) five horses (R15 000) , four goats, made four dagga busts and recovered an R5 assault rifle and two rifles and and luxury SUV and trailer. —
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