In an extensive intelligence driven project dubbed ‘Project Damage’, members of the South African Police Service and the Directorate for Priority Crime Investigation (the HAWKS) identified and arrested several drug kingpins in various areas in the Eastern Cape, as well as in Cape Town.
The investigations that were continuing for over a year, included the identification and profiling of several suspects. During this period, eight suspects were arrested in the areas of Cape Town, King Williams Town, Madatsane, Port Alfred, East London, Berlin and Peddie in the Eastern Cape.
A variety of property including a farm, five houses, a butchery, three luxury cars, other sedans and two bakkies that are believed to be the proceeds of drug trafficking, are in the process of being seized by the State in terms of the Proceeds of Crime Act (POCA), Act no 76 of 1996.
Since 02:00 on the morning of 25 January 2018, the multidisciplinary team conducted further operations that resulted in the arrest of five suspects in the areas of Port St Johns, Peddie and a farm in Berlin, bringing the total number of arrests to 13 in this project alone.
On the farm in Berlin, the police arrested a 53 year old man, recovered 10 000 Mandrax tablets, seized five vehicles of which one was a VW Golf that had been reported hijacked in 2012 in the Point area, another that belonged to the suspect but had been reported stolen apparently to defraud the insurance company, and the remaining three were reported stolen.
The team also seized approximately R250 000,00 which is believed to be the proceeds of drug sales. The recoveries in these and other arrests this morning, are still being consolidated. This property too, will be forfeited to the State. More arrests are imminent.
The National Commissioner of the South African Police Serivce, General KJ Sitole, praised the team for their sterling work when he paid a visit to the farm in Berlin today. “This operation forms part of the turnaround vision to enforce the authority of the State, which I pronounced a day after my appointment in November last year”, said General Sitole.
South Africa Today – South Africa News
