Brakpan SAPS together with the EMPD officers pulled up the flag of Okae Molao and cleaned up the streets. They managed to institute two road blocks, the first one was at the N17 highway next to Carnival City and the other one was at R23 Heidelberg road.
The operation was successful because some stolen vehicles were recovered, and illegal immigrants were captured along with those dealing with drugs.
The operation continued after the road blocks, it stretched out to the plastic village which is based in Brakpan where illegal mining activities occur, pity no one was found beside the mining tunnels and buckets that are used by the illegal miners. Lietenant General Elias Mawela (Provincial Commissioner) said, “First we are enforcing the laws of the land including the disaster management regulations.
In terms of experience we know that people who are committing crimes, most of them they are using vehicles, they transport illegal items, so we get such perpetrators during road blocks, to large extent we even recover stolen vehicles, so we decided to come here in Brakpan because this area also has its own challenges, they don’t only hijack vehicles but even trucks, as we are speaking we have recovered two stolen vehicles and the drivers are arrested. What is important is to ensure that people in the street feel safe, they must know that we are also here to keep them safe and remove criminals in the road so that’s why I’m here.
So we are giving moral support to the officers while leading from the forefront because we can’t send them to do road blocks while we don’t know what they are facing so this is our responsibility.
Arrests which were carried out on that day are as follows: possession of unlicenced ammunition 1, dealing in drugs 1, possession of drugs 3, Illegal Immigrants 44, dealing in liqour without a License 4, possession of suspected stolen property 1. The operation will be hosted soon again.
By Vusumuzi Makwakwa
